Wheels Within Wheels
by Alara Rogers
Summary: Doom Patrol, Grant Morrison-style. Rebis is given a Mandala which turns out to be more trouble than it's worth.
1. Default Chapter

Wheels Within Wheels

In the city of bright pastels, a tiny ramshackle little store stood out, with an indefinable sense of unbelonging. The sign over the door said, in medieval script, "Magickal Gifts". Among other little knickknacks, it sold _matryoshka_ dolls, dolls that could be stacked, one inside the other. Some time ago, a woman named Eleanor Poole used to drive to the store and purchase a doll or two every so often. The proprietress, Emily Stark, a tiny old woman with curly blue hair and a patchwork dress she affected, had come to recognize Eleanor when she came in, and had always been cheerful and friendly with her, asking her about her life and so forth.

The tall person wrapped in bandages and kaleidoscopic overcoat, floating in front of the door, bore absolutely no resemblance to Eleanor Poole. Despite this, Emily had "recognized" Rebis as Eleanor the first time s/he'd shown up to pick up more dolls. Maybe it was the voice. Rebis had observed that people who'd known hir as Larry tended to hear Larry's voice when Rebis spoke, and vice versa with Eleanor. 

Rebis had attempted to explain the situation to Emily, but didn't think it had sunk in. Emily had caught "Doom Patrol" and decided that the changed build, the bandages, the green glow and the new name could all be attributed to Rebis's having become a superhero. Since she was a big fan of superheroes, she almost always remembered to call Rebis by hes name instead of saying Dr. Poole, and so Rebis didn't bother making a fuss over it.

It was half an hour before closing time when Rebis pulled open the door and drifted in. The setting sun lit up the front of the tiny store, leaving the back somewhat musty and mysterious. Emily Stark was putting glass figurines on one of the shelves. She turned, saw Rebis, and broke into a wide smile. "Well, hel-_lo_!" she said cheerfully. "I was just thinking of you!"

"[In what context?]"

"I just got in a whole new shipment of dolls. From the Ukraine. Take a look."

She navigated an aisle full of open boxes of china on the floor, and circled around to where the dolls were kept. "A little Dutch girl doll-- isn't she adorable?" She opened it up, and showed Rebis the next little Dutch girl doll inside it.

"[Very nice.]" Rebis picked up one of the dolls and fingered it. "[The craftsmanship on this is very good.]"

"Yes, it is. I just knew you'd like them. Oh, and there's something else. If I can find it..." She began rummaging through a large cardboard box on the floor. "I put it in here because I was saving it for you."

"[What are you looking for?]"

"Something you'll like," the old lady said. "Ah. Here we go." She removed a large object from the bottom of the box, wrapped in paper. "Take the paper off and look at it."

Rebis removed the paper, and stared at the object in hes hands. It was a mandala, a sacred wheel, carved in wood. There was a series of concentric rings, each with intricate and identical carving on it, altered only in proportionate size. "[Ah.]"

"What do you think?"

"[It seems to go down forever....]" Rebis examined it more closely. "[It _does_ go down forever. Infinite recursive sequence.]"

"You like it?"

"[Very much.]" Rebis took hes eyes off the carving with some difficulty and glanced at Emily. "[How much is it?]"

"That's the funny thing, you know? This traveling salesman gave it to me last Thursday. He said it was a gift, and I would know who to give it to. And you know, I immediately thought of you. Then this man came by, on Saturday when it was slow, and he wanted to pay me some really weird number for it. I think he said $697.45, which is really odd when you think about it-- most people propose round numbers when they want to buy something. Well, 700 dollars, you know! Let me tell you, I was tempted. But you know, I just didn't like the look of him. Somehow slimy. So I told him it was already sold. He was _so_ mad..."

"[It has mystic energies,]" Rebis said, turning it over and over in hes hands. The back was the exact reverse of the front.

"Does it? How wonderful! I always wanted to have something magic in my store." She leaned on a nearby broom. "You know, I always wanted to own one of those little magic shoppes you see in books. The kind that just appear out of nowhere, and disappear when you've bought the item you need. Always. So I named my gift shoppe 'Magickal Gifts', and I dress like a storybook witch... but somehow, the _real_ magic always passed me by."

"[A gift, freely given, has power. But I don't need that kind of power. I can't take a 700-dollar gift from you. Or for that matter a gift worth $697.45.]"

"Oh _no_! I didn't pay a cent for it-- I wouldn't feel right, turning a profit. It's _yours_, Rebis. It was meant for you."

"[Hmm.]" Rebis shut the woman out for a second to have an internal discussion. [Who would give me a gift of something like this?]

[_Gifts have power in the magical dimension. Perhaps someone who wants power over us..._]

[Perhaps.]

[_In which case, we **should** pay her for it. That cancels our debt._]

[Yes, but what about her debt? If we pay her for it, it becomes a gift given to **her**, bought by us. She will be the one who'll have to pay, if someone comes to collect.]

[_Yes. Yes, you're right. We can't endanger her._]

"[I'll take it, then. And how much is the Dutch boy?]"

"Oh." She picked up the doll and looked at its base. "Twenty-three dollars plus tax."

"[Right.]" The wallet had been a gift from Crazy Jane-- it was black leather, with green alchemical and astrological symbols all over it. Sometimes, when no one was looking, the symbols would move around to different locations. Rebis purchased the Dutch boy doll, and the old woman wrapped it up with the mandala, and put them in a box.

"There you go, sweetheart," she said. "All yours. Enjoy."

"[Thank you,]" Rebis said, and drifted back out the door.

****

The Church of Our Mother Who Bleeds for the Innocent was a vast, gloomy structure, said to have been built in a vision by a group of disgruntled monks in the 14th century. According to legend, they had consecrated the ground with the blood of 40 girlchildren no longer virgin. The stained glass windows were said not to be glass at all, but pounded bone, thin enough to be transparent and colored by dyes made with esoteric ingredients, among them the pickled blue eyes of a newborn child and the white leaves of a plant grown in a coffin. And the pews inside were made of black wood, said to be wood that had been piled around a witch's burning stake, that had miraculously not been consumed.

Above the sacristy, in a room lit with candles made from the fat of men who'd died during the commission of obscene acts, the priests of the Uninnocent met to discuss the vexing problem of the Mandala of Eternity.

"And after the Traveling Salesman, where then?" the Bishop asked.

"He can't keep it," a young priest said earnestly. "His profane gods won't let him use it. He must give it to someone else."

Another priest said, "He already has. I located it in Santa Luisa, and attempted to acquire it, using a Number of Power. But he'd already laid a geas on the transmitter."

"Was there a way to tell who the recipient should be?"

"She wouldn't say."

"He serves Hermes Trismegistrus and Hecate of the Crossroads," the young priest said. "He'd have to give it to one of their significators."

"That's no help," the Bishop said sharply.

"Why not? There can't be that many hermaphrodites or triplet sisters out there with metaphysic knowledge..."

"No shortage of thieves. Or witches."

"Oh," the young priest said, disappointed.

Yet another priest spoke. "I think we should all be aware that the Mad Ones are in pursuit."

"_That_ goes without saying," the second priest said.

"We _must_ obtain the Mandala of Eternity before the Mad Ones do," the Bishop said. "The thought of that item in their unholy hands..."

On cue, all the priests shuddered.

"What about the recipient?"

"We must find them, too, before they learn to use the Mandala," the Bishop said. "And then we purify."

All the priests bowed their heads low and chanted in Latin, "We purify for You, Our Lord of the Darkness. Amen."

****

There are five hundred elevators in the United States that go to the Deep Underground. One gets there by pressing the button for the basement three times. It is not advised that anyone try it. Most of those who go to the Deep Underground don't come back, and those who do, do so changed. Some ride the elevators soundlessly, up and down, with screams in their eyes. Others--

Others join the Mad Ones.

They say you can get there through the New York subway system, too. Occasionally a car will come by with no riders. Don't get on. Not unless you are already changed, made a freak by fate. Then the Mad Ones might take you in.

Some say there is a way to get there through the basement of Arkham Asylum, in Gotham. No one who has ever been to Arkham would doubt it. Some of the inmates of Arkham may even be of the Mad Ones, prisoned in a border between the surface world and the Deep Underground.

The Mad Ones. A cult of insanity, of gibbering awfulness. Their leader, some say, is a defrocked god; or a fallen angel; or a mortal man, who learned Things Man Was Not Meant To Know. Whatever happened to Faust, after Mephistopheles stole his soul? (And yes, he did. Goethe prettied that up.)

They live there, in darkness and light, all freaks. Guerra, she whose name means War, 6 years old with a body 4 times that. Maître, a head the size of a human body, floating in midair. He feeds on human flesh. Kisvallen, the glass boy who steals memories and makes of them photographs. Naomi, with her spider legs, who can _find_ people and all their connected ones through the webs of fate. And many, many others.

They have no goal, no purpose, except their own perpetuance. If they had the power, they would impose their madness on all the world.

They hope to have the power.

Very very soon.

****

"Dammit," Cliff said, as he moved his shoe down 3 spaces. "Income Tax _again_! I'm getting wiped out here."

"Cheer up," Josh advised. "It could be worse."

"I don't see how."

"You could've landed on Jane's Broadway."

There was a hotel on Broadway, and the rent was astronomical. Jane, or rather the Secretary, was efficiency personified, with 3 monopolies, all of them improved. "Yeah, you've got a point," Cliff conceded.

"Do you want to pay the 10%, or simply have your wages withheld?" the Secretary asked. She was banker.

"Wages, I guess. I'm not that great at math."

"Um," Dorothy was saying, "um, Miss Jane, can I buy my fourth house for Marvin Gardens now?"

"It's your turn. Do you have the money?"

"Uh-huh."

"These girls are wiping us out, Josh," Cliff said. "We've got to stick together."

"You're just saying that because I own the railroads."

Dorothy bought her house and moved her iron around the board, landing on Community Chest. "Uh-oh," she said. "I owe $100 in back income tax."

She put it in the kitty. "I _need_ to land on Free Parking," Cliff muttered. They were playing by house rules, so whoever landed on Free Parking got the money in the kitty.

Josh rolled and moved his automobile to Chance. "Aw _shit_." He'd drawn Go To Jail-- Go Directly To Jail-- Do Not Pass Go, Do Not Collect $200.

"I _told_ you," Cliff said. "We need to stick together, Josh. They're beating the pants off us."

"Please pass the dice," the Secretary said crisply. She was far too brisk and efficient, and no fun at all. Cliff wished Jane would come back and play with them, but the Secretary handled financial skills, and so she surfaced during a game like Monopoly.

At this point Rebis floated in with packages, taking the fastest route from the entrance to the wing with the private quarters. Jane dropped the dice and her piece, the hat, somebody else surfacing as she lost interest in the game. "Packages!" she squealed excitedly. "What'd you buy?"

"[A doll.]"

Jane was on her feet and at the box. "Can I see? Can I see?"

"Jane? It's your turn," Cliff said.

"Not Jane. I'm Baby Doll. Go ahead without me, okay?" Without waiting for Rebis's permission, Baby Doll had opened the box and was unwrapping the doll. Cliff thought Rebis looked a bit overwhelmed, and wondered if he should try to pull Baby Doll off, but decided against it. Rebis was a big... whatever Rebis was; s/he could take care of hirself. So he shrugged and took the dice.

"She's so cute!" Baby Doll gushed. "What're you going to name her?"

"[I don't name them.]"

"You should. How can they have a personality if you don't name them? What else is in the box?" Rebis moved to stop her, but Baby Doll was quicker. She yanked out the mandala. "Oh, _wow_! It's _beautiful_!"

"[It's mine.]" Rebis took it from her, gently but firmly.

"Can I look at it?" Baby Doll asked. "Pretty please?" Her manner shifted, someone else taking control. "It's magic, you know."

"[I know.]"

"But do you know what it does?"

"[Not the foggiest. I simply got it for its aesthetic value.]"

"It's wheels within wheels," Jane said, and her eyes glazed, staring at it. By now, all the Patrollers were staring at her, the Monopoly game forgotten. "Plans within plans, feints within feints. A riddle wrapped in a mystery surrounded by an enigma. It _hungers_. It devours. Swallowing the shadowed past. The webbed connections of the woman beware. Would you like us to read your Tarot?"

"[No, thank you.]" Rebis backed up and floated away. "[Perhaps some other time.]"

"Read the signs!" Jane shouted. "It brings grief to the crossroads! We speak with the truth of the snakes!"

"Jane!" Cliff grabbed her as Rebis beat a hasty retreat. "Jane, are you all right?"

She turned. "Did she just make a fool out of me?"

"Who?"

"Baby Doll. She just practically attacked Rebis, didn't she. I don't know why Driver 8 didn't let me take over sooner. I'd better go apologize..."

"Jane, that didn't sound like Baby Doll a moment ago."

"When?" Jane blinked. "It sounded like Baby Doll to _me_..."

"Does Baby Doll say things like 'We speak the truth of snakes'?"

"Um... no. Did I just say that?"

"Yes, you did." Both Josh and Dorothy were looking somewhat frightened-- they almost never saw Jane at her craziest.

"It might have been the Weird Sisters. They talk like that. What else did they say?"

"I know," Dorothy volunteered. "I was listening." She repeated Jane's words, from "wheels within wheels" to "the truth of the snakes", almost verbatim. Jane nodded.

"That was the Sisters all right," she said. "No one else says 'we'."

"But what's it _mean_?" Cliff asked.

"How should I know? They didn't tell _me_." She moved away from Cliff and brushed her arms off with quick, businesslike motions, signaling the return of the Secretary. "Well. Shall we get on with the game?"

****

In hes room, Rebis set the Mandala to float in midair, lit only by the light Rebis hirself generated. [What is it? What does it do?]

[_Let's find out._]

Rebis began to study the Mandala, focusing down on the various levels. "[Some sort of maze... I don't know why, but I have the overwhelming sensation that it's a _maze_. Very... compelling.]"

"[_Yes._]"

"[Psychometric analysis...]" Rebis left hes hand hovering near the Mandala, then drew it back with a start. "[It's psychometrically _dead_.]"

"[_I'm not sure. Check again. I sensed something._]"

"[Right.]" This time Rebis left hes hand on the wooden surface. "[Yes... I'm receiving... static. Voices. Voices far down, trapped within the maze...]"

"[_Like the painting that ate people._]"

"[Let's not think about that.]" S/he focused hes attention more closely, more deeply. "[A spiraling maze... there are voices. There's something... a maze... I don't...]"

"[_Pull back!_]" Rebis yanked hes hand away and fell backward, suddenly reeling. [Dizzy... vertigo... feel sick. Something... it's _pulling_ at me...] Distantly s/he recognized fear, even a faint edge of hysteria, in hes own emotions. [We need outside energy. _Yes. Sugar._ Lots of sugar... can we make it to the kitchen? _We have to. _The Negative Spirit is being drained. _I feel it. How do we stop it? _Distance? _Better hope so. _Get out into the kitchen...]

S/he crashed hard into the wall, unable to summon the energy to float anymore, and staggered out of hes room into the hallway. Immediately the drain ceased. The weakness remained, but grew no worse, enabling Rebis to make it to the kitchen under hes own power. S/he had to walk, trailing a hand along the wall to remain stable, but didn't have to call for help.

There was orange juice, and ice cream, and the Chief's chocolate bars ([_He'll never miss just one_]), and Dorothy's Cocoa Puffs, and honey, and peaches, and strawberries, and sugar. Rebis piled them all onto a plate and began devouring them. Hes metabolism was only a backup mechanism, and so was not as efficient as an ordinary person's. The energy that powered Rebis's life came from the Negative Spirit, and only after a major drain did s/he ever need to eat for energy. To get anything out of the food, however, Rebis needed to eat much more of it than normal people would.

Dorothy came in on a food run and noticed the ice cream box in the garbage. "Um... uh... did you eat all the ice cream?" She never called Rebis by name, since she didn't know what honorific to use; everybody else was Mr., Miss or Dr. Rebis had tried to tell her that it was all right to just say "Rebis", but Dorothy thought it was impolite.

"[Yes.]"

Dorothy took a look at all the food Rebis was consuming and frowned. "Are you going to go out and get more food? Miss Jane and Mr. Clay wanted some ice cream."

"[Sorry about that.]"

"Well, I guess I have to tell them there isn't any. You didn't finish my Cocoa Puffs, did you?"

"[There's still half a box.]"

"Okay. Well." She rummaged around in the freezer. "That really _was_ all the ice cream. I guess I better go tell them."

"[I suppose you'd better.]"

A few minutes later, Jane stormed in as Hammerhead. "You inconsiderate _asshole_, what the _hell_ did you eat all the ice cream for?"

"[I was hungry.]"

Abruptly Jane apparently noticed that everything Rebis was eating had a high sugar content, and shifted again. "Rebis, are you okay?"

"[I might be.]"

"You _might_ be? What do you mean?"

"[The sugar has begun to take effect.]"

"What'd you need all that sugar for?"

"[Energy drainage.]" Rebis finished the orange juice.

"_Oh_. Oh, I'm sorry... I'm really sorry. What happened?"

"[I'm not sure. It had to do with the mandala.]"

"Oh, yeah... that reminds me, I wanted to apologize for Baby Doll, before."

"[That's all right.]"

"So what happened with the mandala, then?"

"[I'm not entirely sure.]"

"Well, are you okay?"

"[I don't know yet.]"

"You don't know a lot, do you?"

Rebis ignored that. Jane looked away. "I'm sorry," she said miserably. "I keep acting like a jerk. Here you are with some kind of problem, and I'm harassing you. You need any help?"

"[I don't think so. Thank you for offering.]" Rebis finally felt strong enough to stand. "[I'd appreciate it if you didn't touch the mandala until I finish investigating it, though,]" s/he said. "[I'm beginning to think it might be very dangerous.]"

"Well, yeah. I won't go near it. Sure you don't want help investigating it, though? I mean, if it already hurt you once..."

"[I seem to be somewhat recovered now. And I'd rather investigate it myself. Thank you anyway.]" Experimentally s/he tried lifting off the ground. There was enough energy to float now.

"If you say so. One of these days I want to talk to you and Cliff. I've been

thinking of painting murals on the walls, and I want to know if you have any suggestions."

"[I'll think about it.]"

Rebis left.

****

Emily Stark was in the back of the store, unpacking boxes, when she heard a door open. It sounded like the storeroom door, but that was impossible. The storeroom door was locked, and someone would need to enter the store before getting to it anyway. It must have been the front door she heard. Quickly she headed out into the store. "Hello..."

Her voice died.

A transparent boy, who looked as if he were made of glass, and a tall blonde woman with a childish face were standing in the center of the room. "We want the Mandala," the woman said, in a petulant child's voice. "We _want_ it. You better have it, or else."

"You-- who--"

"Yoohoo! Yoohoo!" the woman caroled. The boy stepped forward.

"Where is the Mandala of Eternity?" he asked.

"The what? Who are you?"

"My name's Guerra," the woman said. "It means war. I'm six years old. Look, I can set things on fire. See?" Guerra _looked_ at a crystal dish, and it burst into flame.

__

Crystal doesn't burn, Emily thought numbly. But it was burning. "Stop it!" she shrieked, and ran at Guerra, who struck her, knocking her back into a table of glass figurines. They shattered all over her as the crystal fire went out. 

"Naughty naughty," Guerra said.

The glass boy approached. "You don't have the Mandala anymore," he said. "Do you?"

Emily tried to get up. Blood ran down her face where the glass figurines had broken and cut her. "What?"

The boy held up a photograph of the wooden mandala wheel. "Who did you give it to?"

"I don't..."

"Who did you give it to? Who did you give it to? Who did you give it to?"

A set of china dishes went up in flame. "Whee!" Guerra shouted.

"Who did you give it to? Who did you give it to?..."

The voice bored into her brain. Despite herself, Emily thought of Dr. Poole, the young black woman who had become a superhero with the Doom Patrol. But she wasn't going to tell them. She didn't know who these crazies were, or what they wanted with the Mandala, but she figured they were supervillains, and she wasn't going to betray Dr. Poole to them.

Then there was a brilliant sharp pain in her head. She blinked, and the glass boy was touching her head, and an image was appearing on his hand. He drew his hand away. It felt as if he were pulling all her blood with it, or something. Some vital substance. She couldn't speak. There was a photograph of Dr. Poole from before she started wearing the bandages, sitting in his hand.

"To her. You gave it to her."

Emily Stark stared in horror, but she could not speak. The words had been taken away, and pressed into a photograph.

"Take care of her, Guerra."

Guerra began to sing. "'Queen Salamander, that's her name/A desert maker, that's her aim...'"*

And then there was burning.

And she couldn't scream.

****

Father Uvula of the Uninnocent got off the bus and started toward Magickal Gifts. He halted, smelling smoke. Then he continued carefully, smelling for the spoor of the Mad Ones.

There was a smoldering human body collapsed in a pile of glass, victim of spontaneous combustion, and the stench of the Mad Ones was thick throughout. Father Uvula sprinkled holy liquid on the body, purifying it, and hastily retreated. It was too late to question the transmitter. But at least he knew the Mad Ones didn't have the Mandala, either.

Yet.

****

Once upon a time, Niles Caulder used to get up at 9:00, eat breakfast, and read the paper, much as ordinary men were expected to. He still did. Only nowadays, breakfast was likely to consist of waffles with chocolate ice cream and a ton of chocolate sauce on them, and the "newspapers" were computer printouts of all the interesting news stories from the country's news services. "Interesting", in this case, meant the sort of thing that interested Caulder nowadays, which meant things that were very weird. Or, sometimes, only mildly weird.

"Now here's something interesting, Josh," he said, reading from his printout. "According to this, there was a mysterious case of arson at a gift shop in Santa Luisa. They found a woman's burnt body, lying in a pile of glass on the floor. The wooden floor and the broken glass were untouched by fire damage-- no burn marks, no melting-- and yet the woman herself was burned beyond easy recognition. What does that suggest to you?"

"In Santa Luisa?" Josh frowned. "Wasn't there something about Santa Luisa? I can't remember..."

"Please, pay attention to the issue at hand, Joshua," Caulder said, annoyed. "This sounds to me like a classic case of spontaneous combustion."

"What?" Josh was not, in fact, paying attention.

"Spontaneous combustion. It's very rare; however, considering the amount of wood in the shop and the heat it takes to burn a human body that badly, the entire shop should have burnt down. The fact that it didn't is very interesting."

"What's interesting?" Cliff asked, as he and Jane entered the room. Cliff, of course, had no use for breakfast, but he liked to sit with the others and talk. It was one of the few social interactions that the Doom Patrol engaged in as a whole, at least sometimes-- Rebis rarely showed up, but Josh, Dorothy, Jane and the Chief usually did, and Cliff felt left out if he stayed away.

"I believe there was a case of spontaneous combustion in Santa Luisa, yesterday. Take a look." He handed the paper to Cliff. Jane read it over his shoulder, and was done before he was.

"I thought it was only fat people that spontaneously combusted," Jane said.

"I didn't know it said whether she was fat or not," Josh said, puzzled.

"It doesn't," Cliff said, looking at Jane. "Jane?"

"I just got the feeling she was skinny," Jane said. "I don't know why."

Dorothy had been silent thus far, munching her Cocoa Puffs. Now she said, "I read once that spontaneous combustion was just when people fell asleep smoking."

"True in some cases," Caulder said, "but not all. I'd really like to know more about this. I don't _think_ a case of spontaneous combustion is necessarily indicative of something else, but I do think it _might_ be significant. Josh, you had something you wanted to say?"

"Oh. Nothing. I just finally figured out when I've been to Santa Luisa before. That was where Larry was in the hospital, before he turned into Rebis. I don't think that has anything to do with anything."

"Possibly not. Santa Luisa is a large city. However..." Caulder frowned. "Actually, that may have significance. Not Larry, but... To my knowledge, the Eleanor side of Rebis resided in Santa Luisa, before their accident. I wonder if Rebis might remember any other unusual incidents having taken place there. Josh, could you call Rebis in here?"

Josh nodded, and left. Cliff said, "Now wait a minute. This article doesn't say anything about spontaneous combustion. Do you want us to investigate the woman's death, or whether it _was_ spontaneous combustion, or who she was, or what?"

"I'm not sure yet," Caulder said. "But it intrigues me. I think we need to know more about it in general before we can tell what we need to investigate for." He finished his waffles.

"Anybody want eggs?" Jane asked.

"That's okay, Miss Jane. I'm having cereal."

"No, thank you. I _would_, however, appreciate it if you could get me a chocolate bar."

Cliff got the chocolate bar for the Chief, as Jane said, "Well, _I'm_ having eggs. I don't care about the rest of you."

Rebis floated in, with Josh behind hir. "[Yes?]"

"Ah, Rebis. There you are. Take a look at this," Caulder said, handing Rebis the printout. "What do you think of this?"

Rebis was always more or less quiet, unemotional, with hes few expressions mostly rendered invisible by the bandages. Cliff had not thought it was possible to perceive hir going still. But he had an overwhelming impression, watching hir, that Rebis had gone absolutely motionless, more than hes usual stillness. "Larry? You okay?"

"[I went to her store yesterday afternoon,]" Rebis said, and placed the printout on the table. "[She was killed by the mandala, somehow.]"

"What mandala?" the Chief asked.

"Rebis bought a wooden mandala from a gift shop yesterday," Jane offered. She was over at the oven, frying eggs.

"[Not bought. It was given to me.]"

"What?" Jane turned. "By who?"

"[By Emily Stark. The dead woman. Who was given it to give to me.]"

"I see," the Chief said.

"[I want to investigate.]"

"Yeah," Cliff said. "Yeah, I think we'd better."

****

The store had been cordoned off by the police, but the police weren't currently there. Rebis floated over the cordon, and Jane went under it, to get into the store, while Cliff waited outside.

"[Chaotic mental imprints. Do you sense it?]"

"It's madness," Jane said. She turned slowly, her eyes wide and cold. "The stink of madness runs throughout. Like a poisonous miasma. The scent of blood."

"[Yes, exactly.]" Rebis lowered to the floor and bent to touch it. It was lightly charred where Emily Stark had burned to death, as if something hot had been touched to it for a moment and pulled away. "[Imprinted confusion... terror. Her mind. Her mind was damaged first. Then the fear.]"

"Find anything?" Cliff peered inside. "I don't suppose you guys plan on looking for any mundane clues as well."

"[Nothing mundane did this.]" Rebis straightened up, but did not lift off the ground. "[Something insane.]"

"Hollow shrieking," Jane said, and put her hands to her head. "There are doors... screaming doors. Maybe I can..."

"Maybe you can what?" Cliff asked, stepping over the cordon on the door and entering the shop. "What a mess."

"[She was very tidy,]" Rebis said. "[This was a harmonious place.]"

Perhaps Cliff was imagining it, but it sounded as if Rebis' voice had the faintest tinge of sorrow to it-- which, next to Rebis's usual impassivity, might be the equivalent of the Larry Cliff remembered breaking down and crying. "I know," he said gently, putting a metal hand lightly on Rebis's shoulder. "It wasn't your fault. Try not to let it get you down."

"[What?]" Rebis turned toward Cliff. "[Oh, I see. No, it's not getting me down. Don't worry, Cliff.]"

Cliff withdrew his hand. "But you feel _something_, don't you?"

"[Something... yes. I think so. But we're-- I'm not entirely sure what.]"

Jane, meanwhile, had been arranging various knickknacks in a semicircle in front of a locked storeroom door. "A gateway to madness," she said. "I can _feel_ them. The stench of minds decayed below the threshold. Hidden underground, buried. If I can just... A key. I need a key."

"What're you trying to do?"

"Doorways. Opening doorways. What can I use for a key..."

"[_You_ are the key. I'll help. Concentrate on madness.]"

"Yes!" Jane turned to Cliff. "We need your help, Cliff. Think about the hospital. Think about what it was like, living there. Think about _me_ at my craziest."

"What are we trying to do?"

"[Open a gate to madness.]" Rebis floated over to the door and put hes hand on Jane's shoulder. "[Come here, Cliff.]"

Jane stretched her opposite hand out to him. "They left through a doorway," she said. "We're trying to open it again. Think about madness."

Okay. That wasn't the weirdest request Cliff had been presented with, in his days with the Doom Patrol. He thought about the people he'd seen around him in the psychiatric hospital: schizophrenic Ralph, who'd been the first to sense the Scissormen; Jane herself, when he'd first met her as the Hangman's Beautiful Daughter; the peculiar smell of insanity that emanated throughout the hospital. He thought about madness-- and Jane opened the door.

"HYAAAGAAAGAARRAARAR!!!" 

A _thing_, a deformed and shapeless thing like a shrunken head grafted to a dozen snakes, the size of a car-- this _thing_ leapt out at them, screaming. Disembodied sexual organs and insects with the faces of aborted fetuses buzzed in the air behind the thing, and the air was turning to gelatin, thick and impossible to move in. The shadows of mosquitoes buzzed out in a cloud, surrounding Jane, who fell backward with an inhuman wail of terror.

Cliff tried to reach the door, to shut it, but the initial explosion of madness out the door had flung them all a few paces back, and he couldn't move forward. A soap bubble floated in from of him, scummy with despair and the destruction of love. In its glistening surface he saw the ruins of his shattered life. He was destroyed, cut off forever from humanity, and all his friends were doomed to die, leaving him the only one alive. All of them, again and again and--

He managed to get his jacket off and swing it at the bubble, breaking it against the jacket's surface. "Rebis! Jane! _Somebody_ get that _door_!" he screamed, waving the now despairing jacket against glass figurines that danced in and out of his field of vision. The gelatinous air allowed him to move backwards slowly, forward not at all. He stepped back and saw Jane, huddled in a fetal ball, still screaming. She was being attacked by paper dolls with razor-sharp edges. Rebis, where was Rebis? Cliff turned his head further and saw swirling evanescent phantoms, spinning in a cloud around Rebis and almost completely obscuring hir. "Get the _door_!" Cliff shouted.

Apparently Rebis heard him. The Negative Spirit peeled free of the phantoms, turning in tight circles to force the clinging creatures to release it, and then shot for the door, slamming it shut in the face of the _thing_ floating there. Immediately the gelatinous nature of the air disappeared. There were still all sorts of awful creatures in the shop, but now Cliff could move freely. He discovered that the things popped like the soap bubble had when he hit them. "Jane!" he shouted, fighting his way toward her.

Abruptly Jane stopped screaming. For a terrified second, Cliff thought she was dead; then she shouted, "Bastards!", and threw off the paper dolls slicing her. She metamorphosed into Black Annis, slicing the creatures apart with her razors. "Cutting! Cutting paper dolls! Slice and slice again-- two can play this game! Paper splits and slices!"

It was only a few minutes before Cliff, Black Annis, and the Negative Spirit managed to eliminate all the creatures. Black Annis metamorphosed back into someone else, who threw herself at Cliff with a strangled sob, as the Negative Spirit rejoined Rebis, who was crumpled up in the corner. "Oh, Cliff!" Jane, or somebody, said, hugging Cliff desperately. "I was so _scared_!"

"Um, Jane..."

Abruptly Jane-- it probably _was_ Crazy Jane now-- disengaged herself from Cliff. "What am I _doing_?" she asked disbelievingly, and threw her arms around herself, as if revolted by the memory of touch. "I can't believe that whiny little bitch."

"You okay now?"

"Sure." She looked at Rebis, who had gotten to hes feet and was brushing the dust off hes coat. "Good work, getting the door there." Rebis nodded.

"I don't suppose either of you know what the hell that was, that we just fought."

"[A manifestation of Madness,]" Rebis said, and floated over to the storeroom door. S/he placed hes hand against it. "[They were-- the Mad Ones. What we just opened was a gateway to the Deep Underground, where the Mad Ones live.]"

"Well, whatever they were, I'm not terribly eager to tangle with them again anytime soon. Worse than the Scissormen."

"They reminded me of the Cult of the Unwritten Book," Jane said.

"Yeah. They reminded me a _lot_ of the Cult. You don't suppose any of their goons escaped the decreation of Nurnheim?"

"[The Mad Ones aren't the Cult of the Unwritten Book. They're similar because the Mad Ones are also a kind of cult. Worshipping madness. Manifesting madness.]"

Jane shook her head. "You've never been in a psychiatric hospital, have you?"

"[I spent some months as an intern at one... I think. Or was that... no, no, I'm right. That happened.]"

Jane glanced at Cliff, including him in her "we". "Well, we were in one recently. Those Mad Ones were considerably more extreme than most of the madnesses I've met, and I _am_ crazy. Don't you think, Cliff?"

"Me? What do I know about madness?" He shrugged. "Yeah, it was worse than the hospital-- but at the hospital, everybody's craziness stayed in their _own_ head. I still think it reminds me of the Cult."

"[Regardless. We've learned what we came to find out.]"

"Which is what, exactly?" Cliff asked.

"[Emily Stark's death was no accident. She was murdered by _that_.]" Rebis gestured at the storeroom door.

"What's the connection to your mandala, then?" Jane asked.

"[I have no idea.]"

"Well, then, we _didn't_ learn what we came to, did we?"

"[The next part is to investigate the Mandala itself.]" Rebis floated over to the exit, then turned. "[Of course, if you and Cliff feel there's something to be gained by further investigation here, you're perfectly free to continue.]"

"Since when have we needed _your_ permission?" Jane asked belligerently.

"[I didn't say you needed my permission.]"

"Drop it," Cliff said wearily. He was getting used to Rebis's ambiguously arrogant statements, and thought they were probably a misguided attempt to be polite. Of course, it was impossible to know for sure.... What he wouldn't give to see Rebis behave, just once, like Larry used to. "If you don't think there's anything to be gained by staying here, we'll leave."

****

"Well, but a gateway has been opened," Enifarren was saying.

"Who _cares_!" Guerra shouted.

"Well, but... a gateway has been opened."

"Put a _lid_ on it!"

"Well, but..."

Kisvallen and Naomi ignored them. "Can you find her?" the glass boy asked.

The girl with the spider legs didn't answer, studying the photograph of the black woman. "Scanning," she murmured, and slipped down...

...and back up. "Nothing. There's nothing there."

"Dead?" Kisvallen asked.

"If she were dead, there'd be resonant traces of that. No-- I can't _find_ her."

"Well, but a gateway has been opened."

Naomi nodded at Enifarren, who was tall and looked as if he had been made of toothpicks. "She did it," Naomi said. "Or had something to do with it. I think... I think she closed the gate, but I'm not sure... I can't _find_ her. I'll try a spiral search."

Spiraling down....

****

__

Naomi of the Mad Ones sees the web of life, the interconnections between human souls. In pictures, the web can be seen, radiating forth. Follow the burning trails of the weblines between souls. Spiraling out along the web, she sees:

--a man, a black man in his 30's, laughing and smiling with a younger woman...

--an elderly black woman with glasses, whipcord thin, a stern face but smiling eyes...

--a young black man with a face lined too soon from lack of sleep, making the rounds with a cup of coffee in his hands, waking dead...

--a black woman just barely out of girlhood, talking animatedly on the telephone in her cluttered dormitory, a bag of cheddar popcorn at her hip...

--a white man, this time, strangely vague-- blond, young, adventurous-- somehow closer to the core of the photograph woman's being than any other;

--closer still, circle closer to the man, closer to the woman--

****

--STATIC--

As the three of them walked back into Doom Patrol headquarters, Rebis put hes hands to hes head. "[Ah--]" For a second it looked like s/he was going to fall over.

"Rebis!"

"Larry! You okay?"

Rebis straightened, lowering hes hands. "[That's very odd.]"

"What's odd? Larry, are you all right?"

"[Fine, Cliff. I just--]" S/he turned to Jane. "[You didn't hear it, did you?]"

"Hear what?"

"[Then I'm right. It was me.]" Rebis moved past the other two and began floating down the hall, oblivious to the questions s/he had raised in their minds.

They moved to catch up. "Rebis, _what_ was you?" Jane asked. "What was it I didn't hear?"

"[A clairvoyant scanning wave. I felt it brush past.]"

"Scanning for what?"

"[Us. Me. I don't think it fixated.]"

"You think it has anything to do with this thing with the mandala?" Cliff asked.

"[I don't know.]" Rebis turned and looked at the two of them. "[Perhaps you _could_ help, at that.]"

"Help _what_?" Cliff stepped closer, intruding on Rebis's space, only one step away from grabbing hir. "Don't go all mysterious on us again, man! Those _things_ had some connection with that woman who died, and that has some connection with the thing you bought--"

"[Not bought. It was a gift.]"

"Whatever! Lar-- Rebis, you could be in _trouble_. We need to know what's going on!"

"[I was about to tell you.]"

"About _time_!"

"[There _is_ a connection between what we fought in the store, and the Mandala. I'm sure of it. But the last time we tried to explore the Mandala, we-- I-- experienced a drain.]"

"That's right," Jane said. "I remember. That's why you were stuffing your face."

Rebis ignored the comment. "[I need to explore the Mandala further. To understand its significance, and why it was given to me. But... I'd prefer to have some backup, there with me. In case something... happens.]"

"Were you afraid to ask, before?" Jane tilted her head at a cock-eyed angle.

"[Not afraid, per se... I simply didn't want to bother anyone. I wanted to deal with it myself.]"

Cliff sighed. "Look, will you try to remember we're a team?" he said. "We're here for each other. If you need to do something dangerous, of _course_ we'll help you. It's no _bother_. It's our job. Otherwise what's the point to calling ourselves a team?"

"He's right," Jane said. "You and Cliff were there for _me_, after the Fifth Horseman. Did you think we wouldn't do the same for you?"

"[Actually, I simply didn't think about it much. Sometimes I forget...]"

"Forget what?" Cliff asked.

"[Let me get the Mandala. I'll set it up in one of the lounges near the kitchen.]"

"In case you need food?" Jane asked.

"[Yes.]"

Rebis brought the Mandala into one of the common lounges, the one next to the kitchen. Jane and Cliff were already there waiting. "What exactly are you going to do?" Cliff asked.

"[Psychometric penetration and decrypting the patterns hidden in the quantum structure.]"

"Right. Forget I asked."

Rebis sat down in an armchair and propped the Mandala up in front of hir, supported by apparent thin air. That had not been an ability Larry had had, or Val, and Cliff found himself wondering how many powers Rebis had that Larry hadn't.

"Tell us what you see as you go along," Jane suggested.

"[Yes. Good idea.]" Rebis reached out a hand and touched the Mandala. "[A maze. I see a maze... compelling. Drawing at me. I want to explore it... examine it.]"

"Be careful," Cliff warned.

"[Surface impression... nothing. Nothing there. Going deeper in...]" Rebis leaned forward, both hands lightly contacting the surface of the Mandala. "[Static. Resolving into voices... this is as far as we got last time. Voices inside the maze.]"

Cliff got up and stood on one side of the chair, waiting to catch Rebis if s/he collapsed or showed signs of drain. "I'm here."

"[Voices crying out... calling. Focusing deeper. The hunger... I...]"

And the Mandala crashed to the floor. Rebis hirself didn't move-- still leaning forward in the armchair, both hands out.

"Jesus!" Cliff grabbed Rebis. "Larry, Larry, are you all right? Speak to me! _Larry_!"

"Check the eyes!" Jane advised.

Cliff pulled off Rebis's shades. The eyes underneath were green, and seemed oddly weak and vulnerable, caged about by bandages. They didn't move. When Cliff moved his hand in front of Rebis's eyes, they didn't track, shift or blink, or do anything but stare fixedly into space. "God. Oh, God. Jane, get Josh and the Chief, now!"

"Right!" She turned and ran off.

Cliff rubbed the back of his hand on his pants until it shone, then placed it in front of Rebis's mouth. The metal surface fogged, ever so slightly. It occurred to Cliff that he hadn't known for sure until now that Rebis even needed to breathe-- but since s/he was apparently breathing, presumably s/he was still alive. Hes arms were slightly stiff, but pliable, like a catatonic's. Cliff pushed the arms down to Rebis's sides, and turned toward the door as Josh and Jane came running in, the Chief wheeling in behind them.

"What's happened?" Josh asked.

"I think he's catatonic. He seems to be breathing. I couldn't check for a pulse or anything."

"Right," Josh said. "Lay him out on the couch."

"It's 'hir'," Jane said. "Lay 'hir' out on the couch."

"What _exactly_ happened?" Caulder asked. "Perhaps you could clarify the situation for me, Jane?"

As Jane filled Caulder in on the events of the day, Josh and Cliff laid Rebis out on the couch and stripped hir to the bandages. Josh slid the flat of his stethoscope under the bandages, in the general region of the heart, and moved it around, searching for the beat. "All right," he finally said. "Heartbeat's normal, at least normal for Rebis." He turned to the Chief. "Maybe an EEG--?"

"The radiation would interfere too strongly," Caulder said. "In addition, since we don't know Rebis's baseline, I'm not sure what an EEG could tell us that we don't already know." He turned to Jane. "I don't suppose any of your selves would be able to help?"

"I'm already here," Jane, or somebody, said in a somewhat hollow voice. "Hes mind is... gone. Into the Mandala. I cannot follow." Her face crumpled. "I'm sorry..."

"Isn't there anything we can do?" Cliff asked. "I mean-- what if we went in after him, or something?"

"No," Caulder said. "I've a better idea. Who would like to accompany me on a trip to Gotham?"

"Gotham? You mean, where Batman hangs out?" Cliff was puzzled.

"Specifically to Arkham Asylum. There's a doctor there, a Sharon Dilliard, who specializes in these sort of cases."

"In people who get lost inside wooden carvings?" Cliff asked disbelievingly.

"No, no. In catatonic states. She herself has certain paranormal abilities which enable her to deal with cases like this. In any case, I think it would be best if I went in person to persuade her to come. Does anyone want to come with me?"

"I do," Jane said. "I want to help."

"Ah hell. Why not." Cliff turned to Josh. "What about you?"

"I figure I'll stay here-- keep an eye on Rebis and the base. Dorothy should probably stay too. No one's got any business taking a kid to visit Arkham."

"I'd prefer not to shelter Dorothy unduly," Caulder said. "On the other hand, Joshua, you should not be alone in the base if something does happen. I'd rather she stayed behind, on the chance that something might come up." The Chief turned his wheelchair toward the door. "I leave matters in your hands and Dorothy's, Josh. If an emergency should arise, and you two can't deal with it yourselves, I _am_ bringing my beeper. Cliff, Jane? Shall we go?"

****

Arkham Asylum was a dark, gloomily brooding structure on the outskirts of Gotham. The three of them got out of the rented van and headed toward the main entrance, which did not have a handicapped entrance. "How annoying," Caulder said. "Cliff, if you would be so kind?"

"It's the same as at the store," Jane said, turning slowly around with wide eyes. "The same as at the hospital. The stench of madness runs thick in the air. Can you feel it, Cliff?"

"Not really," Cliff said, carrying the Chief's wheelchair up the steps. "Where to now?"

"The receptionist should know where to find Dr. Dilliard. We'll go in to the main lobby."

There was a brief argument with some petty bureaucratic people in charge, who didn't want to let Caulder and the Doom Patrol see Dilliard if they didn't have an appointment. By dint of veiled threats, Caulder managed to persuade them that if Dilliard did not, in fact, have patients scheduled at the moment-- which she didn't-- then there was no reason not to let the Doom Patrol see her. Afterward, they headed upstairs on the freight elevator to Dr. Dilliard's office. Caulder was getting downright irritated. "You would think that an institution of this repute would have some other accommodations for people in wheelchairs," he complained on the way up. "A _freight_ elevator! Really!"

"From all I've heard about Arkham, Chief, I can't say it surprises me much," Cliff said.

As they got off the elevator, a man in a straitjacket was wheeled past. "Turnips! Turnip delight! The oscillation of the shivering windmills!" he shouted, then caught sight of the Doom Patrol. "Why, hel-_lo_, Robotman," he caroled, and then, "Shiver my turnips in the arched side of the broken hatrack!"

"Cliff? Who was that?" Jane asked.

"I have no idea."

"He recognized _you_."

"I'm sort of famous, Jane. Old-time superhero, you know?"

"I believe this is it," Caulder said. "Room 315A. Yes, this is her office." There were two signs on the door, in large letters. The first said, THE DOCTOR IS IN; the second, BEWARE OF DOCTOR. Caulder knocked.

"Who is it?" a female voice with a Gotham Black accent called.

"Niles Caulder and the Doom Patrol."

The door opened. Dr. Dilliard was a short, skinny black woman with hair in loose curls, out an inch and a half around her head. She wore a conservative beige business dress with a nametag pinned over the left breast, an unbuttoned lab coat, and thick glasses that made her look slightly popeyed. Her eyes were odd-looking in themselves, a pale amber. "Oh yes," she said. "They said something about you coming to visit. Come on in and have a seat."

Cliff eyed the couch. It had seen better days, and didn't look sturdy enough to take his weight. "I'll stand, thanks." Jane sat.

"As you might imagine," Caulder began, "we're here to ask for your help."

"Everybody is. Pardon me; I can't see a thing with my glasses on." She took off the glasses, placed them on her desk, and sat in the chair by the desk. Without glasses, her eyes were much smaller looking. Next to the whites of her eyes and the darkness of her skin, the amber irises looked pale and weak, and oddly disturbing. "Go on."

"Why do you wear glasses if you can't see with them on?" Jane asked.

"They're not for seeing what's _really_ there," Dilliard said. "They're for seeing what's _not_. Now, you were saying you needed my help?"

"Yes. An unfortunate accident has befallen one of our members, Rebis. As a result, Rebis appears to be... somewhat catatonic. We were hoping you might be able to help with this."

"Is this the one with the bandages?"

"Yes. You're familiar with the Doom Patrol?"

"I used to collect information on superheroes, four or five years ago. I haven't had time lately; I've been out of circulation."

"Ah. Well, there have been a few changes to our line-up. Let me make introductions. This is Cliff Steele, and Crazy Jane, two of the three field agents of the Doom Patrol."

"I'm sure I'm pleased to meet you. Dr. Sharon Dilliard, at your service." She bowed her head slightly. "Now what precisely is wrong with this Rebis person?"

"Apparent catatonia."

"Apparent? Did you check for a medical etiology?"

"That would be a trifle difficult. Rebis is highly radioactive; we can't get an EEG recording, because of interference from the radiation."

"That _would_ present difficulties. Something else; I'm afraid I didn't catch whether the patient is male or female."

"Both."

"Ah. That would explain why I didn't catch it. Um. Is this normal, or--?"

"Very little about Rebis can be described as normal, I'm afraid," Caulder said. "We believe-- we know-- that Rebis is a composite being. The original member of the Doom Patrol who wore bandages was Larry Trainor, Negative Man. That's probably who you were thinking of. Larry, the Negative Spirit he hosted, and a woman named Eleanor Poole were all merged into a single individual. How this happened, we don't quite know. Rebis is reticent on the subject."

"So this one patient is actually two? How many minds are we talking about here?"

"We're not sure. Sometimes it seems like one, sometimes like two or perhaps three."

Dilliard's eyes were getting bigger. "Didn't you ask?"

Cliff volunteered, "Rebis himself says there's three of them integrating into one. Don't ask _me_ what that means."

"All right. All right. What's the cause of the catatonia? Or don't you know that, either?"

"S/he was doing psychometry on this metaphysically charged item," Jane said. "A mandala wheel that goes down into infinity. _I_ think hes mind got lost inside."

"Did you just say 'she' and 'his'?"

"No, no. 'S/he.' Look, I'll spell it." Jane took the doctor's notebook. "After our first adventure, Rebis and I decided to sit down and decide on what pronouns to use with hir. 'S/he' is pronounced like 'see', only with the faintest trace of leading aspirant. 'Hir' is the object pronoun and is pronounced like 'here', except the middle vowel is shorter and more defined. It's spelled like 'her' with the 'i' from 'him'. 'Hes' is the possessive and works like 'his', but it's spelled with the 'e' from 'her', and it's pronounced sort of like the department store Hess, only the ending is more like a 'z' than an 's'." Cliff was rolling his eyes, while the Chief was looking at his watch.

"Be that as it may," Caulder said, when Jane's lecture had run down. "We suspect that Rebis's mind is trapped in the mandala somewhere, and none of us have the ability to go inside and find hir. Since this sort of thing is your specialty, I was hoping you could handle the case. There would, of course, be a large renumeration for your services."

"Okay. Let me see if I quite understand what you're saying." Dilliard leaned back, toying with a pencil. "You have this teammate, a radioactive hermaphrodite wrapped in bandages. This person may actually be two people, or three, you don't know. You have no idea what this person's biological situation is, because of the radiation. And this person seems to have gotten mentally lost inside a-- mandala? As a result, he/she appears to be catatonic. And you want _me_ to go in after this person."

"Essentially correct," Caulder said.

"Well!" She smiled brightly. "Sounds like a great deal of excitement. Where do I sign up?"

"It's settled then." Caulder nodded. "We'll need to discuss your fee, of course--"

"After I finish the job. A lot depends on how long it takes me, how difficult it is, and how much fun I have doing it. I don't really do this for the money, you know. Otherwise I'd be in Beverly Hills, not Arkham."

"I see. Well. Then shall we go?"

"We shall," Dilliard said, getting to her feet, "but I need to take care of some things first. I need to see about having my patients taken care of while I'm going, and then I need to go home and pack--"

"Wait. How long do you expect it'll take you to help Rebis?" Caulder's eyebrows went up.

"I do not have the faintest idea. It could be half an hour, or it could be a week. It all depends on the nature of the defenses, the reason for the catatonia, and what I find in there. I don't know anything about this person's psychology, but it sounds quite complex." She headed for the door. "Do you want to come with me, or what?"

"I'll go," Jane said.

"Good. Cliff, you and I will go to the van and wait. I don't much like the idea of traipsing all over Gotham. Jane, when the doctor has taken care of business, bring her back to the van." Caulder removed a Hershey bar from his jacket and began unwrapping it as they dispersed.

****

After Dilliard cleared her patients' dispositions with the Arkham authorities, she and Jane headed in her car for her apartment.

"So what do you do?" Jane asked. "I mean-- do you just do catatonia? Or what?"

"That would be pretty useless, don't you think? No. I manipulate people's psychescapes, usually on the level of dreams, to make them sane."

"Did you ever think maybe they _wanted_ to be crazy?" Hammerhead asked belligerently.

"To be frank-- no. I don't know if your Dr. Caulder told you, but I'm not exactly mentally well myself." They ran a yellow light. "Ever hear of Cotard's Syndrome?"

"It's a form of schizophrenia. The belief that you're dead."

"Right. I've had it since my last year of medical school."

"You think you're _dead_?-- Watch out!!" This last was screamed as they narrowly avoided hitting a blue Honda rounding a corner.

"No. I'm alive _now_. Sooner or later, I'm sure, I'll be dead again."

"I knew someone who thought he was really his murdered twin brother, and that he himself was dead, but he didn't think _he_ was dead, if you know what I mean. I mean, he had consciousness."

"Well, I have consciousness when I'm dead, too. I just don't have anything else. Did you ever go under extreme sensory deprivation?"

"N-no, I d-don't-- I d-don't _think_ so. Cliff has."

"Well, that's why I feel I have the right to cure sick people. Only the sane have notions of the nobility of insanity. The sane, and some of the insane with delusions of grandeur. Why do you call yourself Crazy Jane?"

"There are 64 of us. In the underground. Crazy Jane's only one of the persons that make up the woman."

"Ah. Multiple personality?"

"We prefer to think of ourselves as persons. I'm Driver 8, by the way."

"Pleased to meet you. I'm Sharon Dilliard, but I suppose you know that already. I met one multiple once, but she had only 12 people. It's a bit unusual to find as many as 64."

"Actually, that's just a convenient number. Not even I'm entirely sure just how many of us there are. Doctor, do you do multiples?"

"Are you asking for my help?"

"_No!_ I don't need your help! _None_ of us need your help, so keep your fucking hands to yourself, you wacko! Everything works down in the Underground and the trains run--"

"_Stop it!_" Dilliard swiveled her head and shouted at Jane. "You! Get back in there, shut up, and let someone rational take over while I'm driving! You want to get us both killed?" She turned back to concentrate on driving.

Jane stared at Dilliard in amazement. "How did you _do_ that?"

"Make her retreat? I simply told her to."

"You didn't just say it outside. You said it in the Underground too."

"That's right." Dilliard pulled up at a brick apartment building. "I have a phobia of death, you see," she explained as she parked the car. "I get very nervous when I'm driving and a patient has a seizure or a psychotic episode. And I don't think--" she climbed out of the car, and waited for Jane to do so too before continuing-- "that we should discuss what Driver 8 asked again, just yet. It's obvious _some_ of you aren't ready yet."

"I think you're right," Jane said, nodding, and followed Sharon into the lobby of the building. "Just out of curiosity, though, _did_ you ever cure a multiple?"

There were three locks to pass through in the lobby alone. "No-- the one I met didn't entirely want to be cured, so I didn't. MPD isn't as debilitating as schizophrenia-- as I'm sure you know as well as I. You might be more sane than I am."

"How the hell can you be a psychiatrist if you're schiz?"

"I take drugs. What is with all this hostility?"

"That's just Hammerhead. Don't mind her. She just doesn't like psychiatrists." They reached the elevator, which needed yet another key. "Why all these keys?"

"Welcome to Gotham," Sharon said sardonically. She punched the button for the fourth floor. "I take it you come from someplace more peaceful?"

"Somewhat. Don't anti-schizoids make you feel awful?"

"Um. Good question. They do, actually, but... well, I've found a way around it, somewhat." Dilliard's apartment was close to the elevator. It, too, needed three separate keys. "Actually, they're crippling. They block my powers--" she swung the door open and stepped inside-- "and make me feel like eating all the time, so my weight goes through the roof. Sorry about the mess."

"Don't worry about it." What Dilliard called a mess was apparently journals all over the furniture. The floor was clean. "You ought to see my place."

"They also make me lethargic, and... well. I avoid taking them whenever possible." She headed for her bedroom. Jane followed, but hovered outside the door, feeling reluctant to enter someone's room. 

"You just said you have to take them or you think you're dead."

"It's not an all-or-nothing thing. As a psychiatrist, I know that schizophrenics on a very low, erratically timed dosage of anti-schizoids are not necessarily _sane_, but they're more functional and more lucid than untreated schizophrenics. As a person who's been unstable her entire life, I feel more normal to myself when I'm teetering on the border between psychosis and normalcy, especially since I need the drugs to be fully sane, and they make me feel so unpleasant. So I titrate myself, taking just enough of the drug to keep me functional and non-catatonic without impairing my powers. I hope. My employers at Arkham do _not_ know about this, by the way, and they're not going to find out."

"What-- what happens when you think you're dead?"

"Well, my health isn't very good. I'm prone to strokes, heart attacks, asthma attacks, and dozens of other fatal and sudden disorders with no medical cause. When I'm fully sane, I even know that I don't really suffer any of these disorders, I only think I do. Of course, I'm not fully sane now, so don't try to convince me of that." She turned back toward the doorway, flashing Jane a bright smile. "You can come in if you want. Oh, and by the way, call me Sharon, not Doctor. I'm not _your_ doctor."

Jane came in. Dilliard was throwing clothes into a suitcase. As she continued to talk, Jane's attention was drawn by a painting over a dresser. "What happens on the outside is that I behave as if I'm suffering from a fatal disorder, collapse, and become catatonic. On the inside, I feel all my senses fading, my heartbeat stopping, until I'm floating alone in nothingness. Then they come from Hell."

The painting was of a hollow-cheeked white man with peculiarly pale skin, wild black hair, and glowing eyes. The dresser under the painting held only an incense burner and a notebook. "This is beautiful," Jane said.

"The only piece I ever did that came out right," Sharon said wryly.

"Who is he?"

"He's... um... oh, I can tell _you_. You won't put it down to the schizophrenia. He's the Lord of Dreams, and the source of my powers."

"The Lord of Dreams?" Jane studied the painting. "You know, he seems oddly familiar.."

"I don't doubt it. Many see him, though they don't remember. He summoned me to his castle in a dream, a peculiarly vivid dream. In the dream, he told me that my powers had come about because the universe was trying to fill the gap he'd left behind, when he was imprisoned on the mortal plane. He said he would let me continue to use my powers, because they were on too small a scale to affect the Dreaming, the continuity of all dreaming minds, as long as I never used them for any selfish purpose other than self-defense. In the morning, I tried to paint him-- I have a long history of trying to record the things I see or dream in art, stories, what have you. I've no talent. My canvas was intended to be the human mind, and nothing less sophisticated will work. Except this one time. The interesting thing is that this happened while I was in the hospital, under heavy medication. Not only was I not capable of a schizophrenic hallucination, or picking up on someone else's dream, but even my own dreams were colorless and flat around then, except for that one. That's how I know he really exists."

"That is so neat," Jane said. "You burn incense to him?"

"Yes, and keep a dream journal." Sharon closed the suitcase. "If there is a God, He's the one responsible for my illness. I prefer to worship the one responsible for my powers. I'm all packed and ready now, if you'd like to get going."

"Sure." As they left the apartment, Jane said, "Did it ever occur to you that the powers and the madness go hand in hand?"

"Of course it has. I just prefer not to believe it. For one thing, I've had my powers since I was 16, and my illness since I was 24."

"Just because the first psychotic episode happened when you were 24, doesn't mean you weren't crazy before."

"True, I guess."

"You're very objective about your disorder. I'm the only one of us who can really discuss the woman's illness with any objectivity, and even I'm limited."

"Who is?"

"Driver 8. Remember me? I was just wondering, how can you say things like "If I were fully sane I would know something, but I'm not so I don't?"

"Easily. I'm a logical, rationally trained psychiatrist, with memories of being more or less sane. I'm also a schizophrenic. The one side enables me to look at my problems objectively; the other side makes sure that no matter what my reason tells me, I _believe_ what my madness tells me. I know what I _would_ think, if I were sane; it just has no relevance." They left the apartment building.

"Do you really think you'll be able to help Rebis?" Jane asked, as Sharon heaved her bag into the back of the car.

"As I said before, I have not got the slightest idea. How much do you know about psychescapes?"

"A lot."

"Oh, good. Do you know anything about Rebis'?"

"I'm sorry-- no. I've never been there."

"Well," Sharon said as she started up the car, "you may just get a chance to rectify that oversight. We'll see."

****

"Has there been any change?" Caulder asked, as he, Cliff, Jane and Sharon came into Doom Patrol headquarters.

Josh shook his head. "Not that I could see. I guess this is Dr. Dilliard?"

"Yes. Sharon, this is Josh Clay, our medic, and Dorothy Spinner, the third member of the outer team."

"Hi," Dorothy said shyly.

"I'm sure I'm pleased to meet you both. If I could see the patient now?"

"This way," Josh said, and started toward the infirmary, everyone else following in a mass wave.

Rebis was laid out on one of the cots, wearing only the bandages and the faint green glow s/he always projected. Sharon walked over to the body, and did a doubletake, blinking at it. "Well. I see this one _does_ have both sexes," she murmured, and turned to Jane. "What's that pronoun again?"

"S/he," Jane offered.

"I'll try to remember it."

Josh crossed the room, took the mandala off a treatment table, and brought it over to Sharon. "This is the mandala we think Rebis is lost in," he said.

"May I look at it?"

"Go ahead," the Chief said. "I'd be careful with it, though. It'd be rather unpleasant were you to end up like Rebis."

"Right." She took the mandala in her hands and examined it, turning it around. "Well, that settles that."

"Settles what?" Cliff asked.

"If she-- excuse me, if s/he-- _is_ in fact inside this piece of wood, it's beyond my ability to detect. I'll have to go in through the mind."

"Yes. I expected you would," Caulder said. "Are there any special preparations you'll need to make?"

"Maybe." She looked around at the five of them. "When I go into most people's minds, I know what to expect. I know approximately where I'm going to find their mind, and how many minds they have, and how they work. In this case, I'm going in practically blind. I could use backup. Someone who knows this person better than I do, to go in with me. Are any of you willing?"

"I am," Jane said. "But are you sure we can get in? Doesn't Rebis have mental defenses?"

"Everybody does, more or less. I bypass them."

"Then I'll go. I might be able to help." She turned to Cliff. "What about you?"

"Sure. Why not. If you think I can do any good in there, I'm all for it."

"That's it, I suppose?" Sharon asked.

"I think the rest of us would be better suited to monitoring from the outside," Caulder said. "If you think Cliff and Jane can provide you sufficient assistance, of course."

"Yes, as a matter of fact, I do think so. We should be all right. I'll have to ask the rest of you to clear the room while we're in, though."

"Will it be safe to monitor the room on camera?"

"Certainly. It's simply that anyone who's actually here will be drawn into the psychescape with me."

"Well, then. Josh, Dorothy? Let's let the doctor and the Doom Patrol get to work."

After they had gone, Sharon lay down on one of the other cots. "You'll want to sit or lay down," she said. "I'll have to take us below the bodily threshold."

"Do we need to hold hands or anything?" Cliff asked.

"No. You can think of it as a field I'm generating-- as if I'm externalizing Rebis' psychescape into an astral plane for all of us to perceive, and not as if I'm taking _us_ anywhere, if you like. I'm not exactly sure how I _do_ do it, but physical contact isn't necessary."

Jane sat cross-legged on the floor, and Cliff lay down. "Okay, Sharon. We're ready when you are."

To be continued...

****

Wheels Within Wheels, Installment 1

Based on _Doom Patrol_ by Grant Morrison

Other sources: "From A to Z in the Chocolate Alphabet", by Harlan Ellison; _Nightbreed_ movie flyers, based on "Cabal" by Clive Barker; _Sandman_, by Neil Gaiman

Mental soundtrack by Siouxsie and the Banshees

****

*-- Paraphrased from "Burn-Up", Siouxsie and the Banshees


	2. Chapter 2

The world fuzzed out, like a television set with bad reception. When it came back, they were inside a ghostly green darkness. They themselves were completely visible, but there seemed to be no ambient light. "Wow," Jane said.

"Where are we?" Cliff asked.

Sharon got to her feet. "Forebrain. Higher cortical functions. As you can see, there's nobody home."

Jane stood up. "Where is everything?"

"What do you mean?"

"You know..." She made aimless motions with her hands as Cliff stood.

"She's right. When I was inside Jane's head, it looked like a subway system. This doesn't look like anything."

"I've noticed."

"Well, what does it mean?"

"A number of things it could mean. Rebis's mind deals in the abstract to such a degree that she has no defined psychescape at all. Or as I said, there's nobody home. Either she's in the mandala or dead. Or, we could be in waters too shallow, in which case a psychescape will turn up when we go deeper in."

"Why do you keep saying she?" Jane asked. "It's s/he."

"Not everyone can put up with talking in made-up pronouns all the time, Jane," Cliff pointed out, in a tone of long-suffering patience.

"I'm sorry-- I do find it rather difficult to use the pronouns you told me, and the body seemed to look more feminine than masculine to me."

"No kidding?" Cliff said. "I have a problem remembering that he's not a guy. Probably because it was the Larry side of him I knew before."

"Well, the breasts, you know. They were rather large, and rather hard to miss in a casual glance. In any case, for the sake of convenience I will continue to refer to Rebis in the feminine, and since you will use the masculine and you, Jane, will use the androgynous, everything will balance out in the end. Now, are we ready to go on?"

"Ready as we'll ever be."

The darkness seemed to flow past, like a river sweeping around them, in them, through them. Flashes of light occasionally crackled, brilliant green lightning bolts splitting the darkness. "This is getting us nowhere," Sharon complained. "Deeper!"--

--and the world twisted.

* * *

The room-- it felt like a room, and a rather small one at that, though its boundaries were invisible-- was similar to the space they'd been in before, a womblike green darkness. But this felt more enclosed, more protected. The scent of caves, with mossy walls and subterranean ponds, or of an aquarium, fish-full, filled the air. In the center of the room was a shattered mirror.

As they approached closer, they could see that it wasn't just one shattered mirror. On the ground were mirror pieces, in red, dark blue, and green. At least they looked like mirror pieces, but they didn't reflect anything. The mirror dominating the center of the room looked like a puzzle being constructed out of the mirror bits. Some pieces were just tacked onto the frame, unconnected to the rest. Others were next to other pieces, but retained their boundaries and their colors. Most of the mirror, however, was composed of one colorless, seamless and rather large piece, as if large numbers of pieces had been melted together and refined into a single fragment.

"What's that?" Cliff asked.

It was Jane who answered. "Integration," she said, looking at the mirror with something like hunger in her eyes. "Putting the pieces together." She bent down and looked at the mirror fragments. "Just like a jigsaw puzzle."

"Don't touch anything," Sharon warned.

"I won't."

Cliff turned to Sharon. "Does everyone with a fragmented mind have puzzle pieces inside their heads? Jane had puzzle pieces, too."

"No. Not necessarily. This may not even be the metaphor Rebis herself uses." She turned to Jane. "Jane, you use a jigsaw puzzle as your central metaphor?"

"Um... I guess you could say so. Why?"

"Well, that's why we're seeing things like this," Sharon said. "_Our_ minds are manufacturing the metaphor here, and Jane has more minds than we do. I think Rebis deals on a slightly more abstract plane. Or perhaps more disjointed-- several dozen overlapping metaphors, and we only see one, because we're influencing it. The psychescape could, for instance, look like this." Suddenly they were in the middle of a three-dimensional grid contour map, like a computer-generated image made of colored lines. The green mirror had transformed into a flat plane, while the red and blue maps were uneven, dipping down to weave into the flat green plane, in other places rising up, mingling with each other, or dropping below the green plane. "This may be closer to Rebis' own metaphor. Or maybe not. It's hard to tell."

"A holographic set of contour maps?" Jane said.

"Looks like it fits him better," Cliff muttered.

"There are other metaphors around here, but they aren't visual. A chemical reaction, a crucible, a few others that we needn't get into. This one is rather too easy to perturb, so maybe we should go back. We can avoid disturbing the mirror metaphor better than this." They were back in the room with the unreflecting mirror.

"Wait a minute. Let me see if I understand this. Whether or not you can muck with something depends on the metaphor you're using to look at it?" Cliff asked.

"Of course."

"But why? It's the same thing, isn't it?"

"No. The metaphor you use to look at something doesn't change _it_, but it changes the degree to which you interface with it, and therefore the degree to which you can affect it."

Cliff shook his head. "Whatever you say. Where are we trying to get to?"

"This is the confluence of identity, where the process of integration seems to be taking place. We're trying to find the ego."

"Where would the ego be?" Jane asked. "I mean, if it _is_ in the Mandala, how do we get there from here?"

"We find the memories, and ride them up until we find the most recent ones. Ego should be connected to the interface between memory and experience."

"So what are we waiting for?" Cliff asked.

"Nothing. Let's go."

The world warped again, and resolved itself into a static tableau, like a diorama. "Cliff-- that's you! Isn't it?" Jane said, surprised. "And the Chief has red hair!"

"Yeah. He used to." Cliff was staring at a red-haired woman in the image. "God," he murmured. "Rita..."

"That was Rita Farr?" Jane tried to get into the diorama. "It's like it's behind glass."

Rita, the old Cliff, and a younger version of the Chief were in the image, standing like three corners of a square. "Let me guess. This is one of Larry's memories."

"Yes." Sharon pressed against the invisible boundary of the scene. "I need to check something." She melted into the boundary, and was suddenly inside the scene. The tableau began to move.

"...terrorizing the citizens," the Chief was saying.

"So you think this is a job for the Doom Patrol?" Cliff winced to hear his former voice. _God, I sounded like that?_

"Yes, I'm--"

Sharon stepped back out of the tableau, and it stopped moving. "Not here," she said.

"What were you looking for?" Jane asked.

"Memory trace. If ego had accessed that memory recently, I could have followed the trace. As it is, we'll have to do this the hard way."

"So we need later memories. After the transformation. Right?"

"Yes."

"Why don't we just go there, then?"

"Because these memories aren't indexed in order. They're all over the place."

The shift came again. This time, they surfaced directly inside the tableau. A tall and strangely distorted black woman was shouting, "...don't want to hear this again! You'll bring up your grade, young lady, or your daddy's going to whale your hide, you hear me? I don't want to see another C on your report card for as long as I live!"

Sharon grinned. "Reminds me of _my_ mother," she said, looking back at Cliff and Jane.

Being inside the memory was weird. Viewed from one point, it was fully three-dimensional and detailed. Behind that point, if one were to turn around, it didn't exist. The child Eleanor was the reference point for the scene, but did not exist in it herself, except as a voice. "It wasn't my fault, Momma, it was just because I was sick all the time!"

"I don't want to hear that! You understand me, Eleanor Leigh?"

There was a sensation in the air, a feeling of panic and shame and fear. "I want to get out of here," Jane said, almost whimpering.

"Right." They were outside. The tableau turned static.

"What's wrong, Jane?" Cliff asked. She was shivering, drawn into herself.

"It's all the same," she said bitterly. "It's supposed to be _love_ and _guidance_, but it's the same everywhere. Parents."

"Now wait a minute!" Cliff put his hands on Jane's shoulders. "Jane, that wasn't abuse we saw in there. That was a mother chewing out her daughter for getting bad grades. All parents do that-- that doesn't mean they beat their kids or abuse them."

"So why was she so afraid?" Jane demanded. "I could _feel_ it. I could feel her terror!"

"Because she was a child, and children blow things out of proportion," Sharon said calmly. "And because you were projecting what would have made _you_ afraid into the situation. Here." They were inside another tableau. Eleanor, still a child, was visible in profile, but disappeared when you tried to look directly at her. She was apparently working with her mother on a knitting project. "Look here, honey," the mother was saying. "_This_ is how you seal off the edges."

"Okay." Childish hands protruded into the picture and manipulated needles. "This is gonna be so good. I'm gonna get my badge before anybody else."

"It's enough to get your badge at all," the mother said. "Don't worry about the others." There was a feeling of warmth and excitement in the air.

"You see, Jane?" Sharon said. "It's not all bad."

"I suppose." Jane knelt on the floor next to the memory figures and studied a ball of green yarn.

"Why is it we can see the girl in profile?" Cliff asked. "And why does the world look blurry?"

"We can see her in profile because of image reconstruction. The mind can remember itself at a remove, as if we were looking at ourselves from slightly off to the side. A lot of older memories get this distortion. As for the blurriness-- I don't know, does Rebis wear glasses?"

"Sunglasses. I don't think they're prescription. But maybe Eleanor did."

"Yes, that's probably it. Jane? You ready?'

"Sure."

And next--

Darkness. They were in darkness, the smothering darkness of oblivion. It was not even dark-- it was _not_. Not-sight. Not-being. Nothing but a vague, amorphous hunger for reality, for being.

A shrill scream split the not-dark, and then they were somewhere else, in the ghostly green light of the abandoned forebrain. Sharon was kneeling on the bottom surface, gasping.

"Sharon! You all right?" Cliff asked, bending down next to her. She nodded, her eyes wide and slightly protuberant.

"It was-- too much like. Death."

"Like _what?_"

"Sharon's schizophrenic, Cliff," Jane said. "She has delusions that she's dead."

"Oh, great! Why didn't anyone mention this before?"

"It didn't come up," Sharon said, getting to her feet. "I'm all right, Cliff. Don't worry."

"So what the hell was that?"

"Must have been one of the Negative Spirit's memories," Jane said. "That's the only thing that makes sense."

"I'm not sure _any_ of this makes sense. You sure you're okay, Sharon?"

"Fine. I just lost my place a tad. We'll have to go back."

* * *

--The world erupted around them.

This was not a static tableau. It was a memory, but a memory so vivid, dominating, immediate, that it became a first-person experience, shared completely. Not a movie, but a dream, enveloping the viewer.

Larry Trainor was lying on his bed in the hospital, its unyielding surface blocking escape. Terror consumed him, like the burning light of the energy being swirling around his head. Sweat poured down his cheeks, plastered his thin pajamas to his body. It was not part of him. The Negative Spirit was not under his control. He couldn't predict it. "Purpose? What purpose?" he asked, frantically stalling.

"youknowlarry theunionthefusionthealchemicalmarriage"

He knew, without knowing how he knew. A dormant memory, of a plan conceived by a dweller within, long before. Transformation and rebirth. Hydrogen into helium. The loss of his own life into a gestalt. "No," he whispered, anguished.

"takemyhandnow"

"No... I..."

Pressed against the bed and the energy burning him. What he had controlled so long, controlling _him_. His hand moved against his will, extension of someone else. Something else.

"takemyhandlarry"

_God help me no I don't want this_ "Oh no, please... don't do this to me... please... wait... I..."

"itstimetogo"

Contact.

A searing pain throughout all senses. An explosion of light. Expanding, expanding, burning. He felt distanced from his body, energy. The Negative Spirit and he were one again, but the balance was shifted. The control was not his. He was the extension, dimly sensed body hanging limply in the Spirit's embrace. Simultaneous terror/anticipation/ agony/sexual desire and when she came into the room, desire swamped everything, to have her, hold her, take her, _be_ her, and she came forward with their desire mirrored in her confused eyes and reached for their hand, take her/Eleanor into themself, oh no why why did I do it why did I touch I don't want this and she/he/they screamed as energy burned them away--

"nowwearethree"--

agony transform into ecstasy, orgasmic pleasure blotting out the world more intense than anything in his/in her experience, merging, shattering, the world, falling down into one another, spiraling in--

"nowweareone"--

and the final explosion took everything away...

* * *

"God," Cliff said into the darkness. "God."

Jane drew in a breath, almost a sob. "I... never knew. I..." She began to fade into view in the ghostly darkness, as if eyes dazzled by the spectacular last explosion were slowly adjusting. She had her arms wrapped around herself, and she was shaking. "We shouldn't have seen that. That should have been private."

"I know," Sharon said softly. "I meant to get us out of there, but I couldn't... move."

"Like it was real," Cliff muttered. "It was-- like I _was_ Larry."

"We were," Sharon said. "That's only happened to me once or twice in my life-- someone else's memory being powerful enough to suck me inside." She shuddered, then shook her head. "It's done now. We've reached the critical nexus. Memory is indexed properly after this-- all we have to do is follow up through Rebis' memories until we reach the leading edge. That's where we should find ego, if there isn't a disjunction."

"A disjunction?" Cliff said.

"A place where memory becomes non-sequential. We'll know it if we see it. Let's go."

The next scene was another static diorama, but-- changed. It was a scene of a street in Happy Harbor. Jane herself was visible in the periphery. "I'm _glowing_," Jane murmured, staring at the image.

Everything was glowing, more or less, in colors that didn't exist. It was as if several images were laid on top of each other-- the glowing auras formed one layer, and below that, a grainy picture, in which everything was made up of impossibly tiny yet distinct dots in no color at all. Yet the colorless dots radiated _something_ that made them distinguishable. On another level of the image, there were ripples in the air, as if a contour map had been laid over everything. "What the hell--?"

"Is this how Rebis sees?" Jane asked.

"I guess so. I've never seen anything like it," Sharon said. "Let me take us inside."

The diorama sprang to life around them. Now that there was motion, the overlapping components of the image produced ghosts. Moving figures remained in one position on one of the levels of vision after they had moved to a different one on another level. Sound existed on the audible, ordinary level-- Jane's voice, discussing a book she'd read on the continuity of being; citizens of Happy Harbor talking, cars, etc, the sort of things any of them might hear. There was also a regular thrumming, a vibration through the body, and on another level whispering soundless voices: _wanted to do the deal so what's the hate him I hate him I wish he was gimme! it's mine! no fair! no so tired I'm so tired headache stop screaming little brats like to take a meat cleaver and hey look it's the weirdos from the Doom hot babe like to he's looking at her swear I'll kill him..._ The light in the air seemed to be a river, rippling and rushing around the images. Emotions translated as smells, tastes at the back of the throat-- this man's lust, that woman's fury, as distinct scents. There was no trace of ordinary scent at all.

"This is weird," Cliff said, staring about. "I mean-- with this team, I've seen a _lot_ of weird, but this is definitely up there."

"It's three-dimensional," Jane said. "Look!" She turned around. In earlier memories, the images had vanished entirely when she did that. Here, only the immediate, surface level of vision disappeared, with ghostly afterimages remaining on most of the levels.

"How does he make sense out of all this?" Cliff asked no one in particular. He was beginning to get an idea of why Rebis's behavior was so strange. If this was the world s/he lived in...

"The same way any of us do," Sharon said. "Practice. Lots of practice." They were outside the diorama again. "No ego traces. We'll have to move forward."

The panorama of memory began scrolling forward as a blur. Waves appeared, rolling slowly through the blur. "_That's_ never happened before."

"What hasn't?" Cliff asked.

"Those waves. I think Rebis must be able to see something whose time course is so slow that we couldn't detect it in the one memory. If all you had to go on was a single time point, you'd never know that plants grow."

"It's fun," Jane said. "Like watching 'This is Your Life' on your VCR and fast-forwarding it."

"Does everyone have a memory record like this?"

"No-- well, for the most part, yes. You do. Jane probably doesn't, because the memories are parceled out to different people. And Rebis's earlier memories weren't organized like this either, which is why I didn't do this before. I-- ow!" The images stopped suddenly. Sharon put her hand to her head. The final image showing in the memory diorama was the Mandala.

"We're there, aren't we?" Jane asked.

"Yes. Oh, my head. I feel like I just bashed myself into a brick wall."

"So where's Rebis?" Cliff asked.

"Wait." Sharon pressed her fingertips to her eyes. She removed her thick spectacles from her breast pocket and put them on, making her look goggle-eyed. Carefully she looked at the image. "Yes. She _is_ still alive. The leading edge of memory is in there."

"In _where?_"

"In the psychescape of the Mandala. When an ego moves out of its body and into some other domain, I have to go in through the memory of crossing. Lord, this is one complicated case." She sighed, removing the glasses. "This is the situation. Rebis's ego is in the Mandala. For us to go in after her, we have to enter this memory and cross through the disjunction here. This is where the danger comes in. When we retrieve Rebis, her mind will carry the rest of us with it. But if we _don't_ retrieve Rebis, we ourselves will not be able to get back. I won't be able to cross back through this disjunction."

"So what you're saying is that if we don't get Rebis out, we'll be stuck in there ourselves," Cliff said.

"Essentially."

"But there's no way to get Rebis out unless we risk it."

"Yes."

"What are we likely to find in the Mandala?" Jane asked.

"How would I know? All I know is what you know-- something in there pulled Rebis in, and we don't know whether she hasn't left because she doesn't want to or because she can't."

"'Can't''s more likely, I think," Jane said.

"Cheering," Cliff said. "Let's go before we change our minds."

Transition.

There was a sudden lurch, a sense of nausea (Cliff, who hadn't been nauseous in years and had nearly forgotten what it felt like, almost enjoyed it, but then, it _was_ very brief), and then they were through.

Around them were walls, towering, impossible, infinite walls of wood, covered with carvings that seemed to writhe and whisper haunting fragments. A soft green glow suffused everything. Ahead of them was a path that forked.

"It's a maze," Cliff said, remembering what Rebis had said just before s/he went catatonic. "Look, Sharon. Are we even going to be _able_ to find him in this?"

"I think so." Sharon put her spectacles back on. "The trouble is going to be finding our way back."

"We can't just retrace a memory trail or something?"

"I don't know, Cliff. I've never been in this situation before. Most catatonics I've worked with weren't trapped in mazes inside wooden carvings."

"Uh, guys?" Jane produced a ball of green yarn. "We can use this."

"Where'd you get that?" Cliff asked.

"It's not real," Sharon protested. "If it's not part of Rebis's mind, it has no reality outside of us. It'll disappear as soon as--"

"Will you shut up? It _is_ part of Rebis's mind. I picked it up in one of Eleanor's memories."

"Oh." Sharon looked chagrined.

"We're not exactly rank amateurs, you know."

"Jane, you're fantastic. How long is it?"

"Did you ever notice how, if you're trying to imagine unrolling a ball of yarn, you never get to the end?" Jane said. "You get stuck in a loop, and nothing ever changes. Imaginary yarn doesn't _come_ to an end."

At this point, a skeleton staggered toward them. Sharon gasped, going gray, and hid behind Cliff. Jane made a disgusted noise at the skeleton. "Euw. Lovely landscape they have here."

"Nobody do anything threatening," Cliff said. "Let's wait and see what it does. It might not be a hostile."

Sharon cautiously poked her head out from behind Cliff. The skeleton was still advancing, but slowly, shuffling and weak. It didn't look awfully threatening, except for the fact that it was a skeleton. "A female, adult, probably anywhere from her late 20's to early 40's when she died," Sharon said, regaining her composure. "Died within the past two hundred years, if we can trust what her skeleton looks like. She had adequate nutrition throughout her life, and didn't do a lot of physically strenuous work."

Jane made a face. "Do you have to be so morbid?"

The skeleton stopped, about six feet away from Cliff, who had moved to stand slightly in front of the others. "Help... me..." it whispered in a thready voice.

"We'll help you if we can," Cliff said, taking a step forward with his palms up in a gesture of friendliness. "What's wrong? Can you tell us?"

"Everything's wrong," the skeleton whimpered. "Home... can't find the way out... I..."

"Do you remember how you got here?"

"Eternity... the Mandala of Eternity... but I but I... help me..."

"We can't help you if you don't tell us what's wrong," Sharon said.

"The Mandala is what's wrong," Jane said. Now that they were more or less out of Rebis's head and in a weird extradimensional environment, she was in her element, and sounded much more confident than before.

"Yes... the Mandala... so hungry... I..."

"Watch out!" Cliff screamed as the skeleton crouched to leap.

Sharon threw herself behind Cliff. Jane, however, stepped forward, arms thrown out. "Yes," she said. "I have what you need."

"_Jane!_"

The skeleton leapt at Jane, who embraced it. "I give you release, sister," Jane said softly. Her arm began to buzz, shaking back and forth so fast it blurred. She pressed the buzzing arm into the skeleton, slicing its bones apart. It crumbled into dust, and Jane stood, brushing the dust off herself.

"Jane?" Cliff stepped forward. Jane turned.

"No. I am Sister Mary of the Chainsaw. That unfortunate soul had been drained of her life a long time ago, and lingered on as a revenant only, a hellish shadow of herself, drinking the lives of others. I gave her peace."

"Oh," Sharon said, sounding nonplussed. "Well, it worked, anyway."

"I know I know," Jane said, her voice and stance changing, becoming childish. "I know what the Mandala is. She said it to me in her sleep."

"What? What's the Mandala?" Cliff asked.

"Hungry." Jane tittered. "Hungry! It eats and eats until all'at's left are the bones, an' they live here. They gotta drink from the live souls that come in 'cause they haven't got anything else. 'Cause the Mandala ate them up. An' if you do it right, you can make the Mandala give you all the stuff it ate, so you can live forever'n' ever. But it's draining the air, too, can't you see it? It's eating up the air!" Jane laughed again and began to spin in circles. "Gonna eat up the air an' there won't be any left to breathe and we all fall down 'cause there won't be any air..."

"Jane!" Sharon shrilled, her whole body rigid. "Stop it stop it _stop it!_"

Jane shrieked and lost her balance, tumbling over, her hands out to break her fall. Cliff looked at Sharon, who was rigid, staring straight ahead and hyperventilating, and at Jane, who was on the ground. Jane, he decided, took priority. "Jane!" He ran to her, and lifted her.

"I'm all right. I'm all right," Jane said, holding onto his wrists. "I'm okay." She went to Sharon, who was rigidly shuddering. "Hey. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Sharon, okay? I can't always control the others."

"What's happening?" Cliff asked.

"Sophie Apollonia scared her," Jane said. "So she screamed in my head for Sophie to shut up, and Sophie got startled and fell over. It was a moment before I could get control back. It's okay, Cliff."

"I heard your prophecy," Sharon whispered. "We're all going to die, aren't we? Aren't we?"

"No, no. That was just Sophie Apollonia. She doesn't know how to interpret her visions. See, there's an energy in the air. That's that green glow. That's what the Mandala's drawing on, not us. It's not touching us."

"Wait a minute," Cliff said. There was something that was nagging at him. "The Mandala is draining energy out of the _air?_ We're not really here. How can there be air?"

"Well, it's not really air. It's an ambient energy field."

"Okay. The Mandala sucks energy out of the people who enter it, right? That's what you said?"

"Yes, but it's not touching--"

"--us, right, right. Bear with me, Jane. Didn't Sharon say we weren't really in the Mandala? That we came in through Rebis's head?"

Jane blanched. "Oh my God."

"What?" Sharon's hands clamped on Jane's wrists, like talons. "What is it? Are we in danger after all?"

"Not exactly," Jane said. "_Rebis_ is. Cliff figured it out."

"I should've seen it sooner," Cliff said. "A green glow?"

"I don't understand."

Sharon, for all her otherworldly knowledge and psychological training, was not an experienced superhero. Cliff explained. "You said we're here inside Rebis's head. That green glow is his life force or something. _He's_ really here, so the Mandala can drain him. We need to reach him as quickly as possible, Sharon-- can you sense where he is?"

"This way, I think. The memory traces are dim, but they're there." She started forward. "You realize, if Rebis dies with us in her mind, we'll be killed too?"

"I figured that," Cliff said.

They began to move through the maze, Jane paying out the green yarn behind them. As they traveled, they passed piles of dust, like the dust the earlier skeleton had become. "Well, this is encouraging," Cliff said.

"What is?" Sharon asked, looking back at him.

"Skeleton dust. Somebody's been skeleton-smashing. Looks like Larry's still in pretty good shape-- or was when he came through here."

"Rebis doesn't like to be called Larry overmuch, does she? S/he?" Sharon asked.

"We had an argument about it in the beginning, but I don't think he cares anymore. Why?"

"Just a thought. You ought to call people what they choose to be called."

Cliff produced an electronic sigh. "Don't you start."

As they proceeded through the maze, Sharon leading them forward, they encountered more and more skeleton dust, and some partially decomposed bodies scattered in pieces on the ground. One of the bodies, a slim Asian man, had only lost its arm. It got up as they approached and leapt at Sharon. She screamed. Cliff shoved her out of the way and took the attacker himself.

Cold. Its embrace was unutterably cold. Cliff had not experienced the physical sensation of cold in what seemed like forever, but he _had_ previously experienced the sense of energy drain that came with the cold. Violently he shoved the creature from him, with strength that should have broken its ribcage and ruptured its vital organs. But since it wasn't real, or wasn't physical, at least, all it suffered was a stunning as it hit the ground hard. Cliff was shaking, feeling like he did when his nutrient tank ran low-- dizzy and cold on the inside.

Jane threw herself forward, transforming into Black Annis. "Rip your flesh!" she shrilled, lunging at the revenant. "Drink your blood! Slice your bones!"

The revenant threw itself backward, dodging Black Annis, and shouted, "_Majo! Shiné!_"

Cliff backed off, staying out of the combatants' way. The revenant's arm had grown back. He now looked more like an emaciated man than a starved corpse. He and Black Annis were snarling at each other, him in some guttural language that Cliff didn't speak, and he was parrying Annis's razors with-- what? It looked almost like a sword, when it was visible, which wasn't always. Black Annis was getting more and more frustrated.

Sharon's eyes were closed. "It-- he-- was a magician," she said softly. "A Japanese. He was sucked into the Mandala forty years ago, but his spells have kept him largely intact. And he wants Jane badly. If not Jane, he'll settle for me. Our mental powers give us a great deal of energy. Most of your body is powered by mechanical energy, not biological, so you have very little usable energy from his point of view."

"How do you know all this? I didn't know you were a real telepath."

"I'm not. Rebis is, though, and the memory traces are stronger here. You're right, Cliff-- the shattered skeletons we saw on the way here were Rebis's work. She barely survived the encounter with this one, though."

"Shit." Cliff clenched his fists, watching the combat. He knew better than to get in Black Annis's way-- but she wasn't winning. "Jane and you both said we're not really in the Mandala. How can these revenant things nail us?"

"We are but we're not. I'm not sure, as I can't sense the Mandala per se. Ask Jane, when she finishes up."

"I wish she'd change to someone else. Black Annis isn't getting anywhere."

Then the blade flashed, and blood spurted everywhere. Jane's voice-- not Black Annis's-- split the air in a shrill scream, and Jane fell backward with a red gash opening her stomach.

"_JANE!_"

Cliff lunged, closing with the Japanese man in a blind fury. The sword swung, and blunted against Cliff's metal body. He grabbed the revenant, ignoring the cold and weakness he felt, and with a single violent spasm ripped its head off. The head cursed violently, and the body slipped free of Cliff's grasp and began staggering toward the wounded Jane. Cliff dropped the head and grabbed the body, hurling it into the wooden wall. It lay still where it had hit.

"Cliff!" Jane called weakly. "Toss me the head?"

Cliff picked up the head and brought it over to her at a run. Sharon was pressing her hands against the bright red wound in Jane's stomach. "Jane!" Cliff shouted.

"The head?"

"Don't talk," Sharon was saying. "I'll get the wound bound up in a moment. Cliff, could you--"

"Don't bother," Jane interrupted, as Cliff knelt and handed her the head. "I can heal-- myself-- aah--" She clenched the cursing head, and for a second blood spurted fiercely from the wound, drenching Sharon's dress, as Jane's eyes widened and her face twisted in agony. Then the blood, and the pain in her gaze, subsided, and the head crumbled to powder in her fingers.

Cautiously Sharon released the wound. It was sealing up. "How--"

"I drained his energy to heal myself." Jane got up. "I must look a wreck. Blood all over, my poor dress ripped open--"

"You're all right, though," Cliff said, feeling overwhelmed with relief. "Right? You're okay now? Are you okay?"

"I feel great. Here, Cliff. You've lost some strength too, haven't you? I've got a little to spare." She placed her hands on Cliff, and the cold weakness faded in a wash of warmth.

"How many more are there like that one?" Cliff asked Sharon.

"According to memory trace, Rebis hasn't run into any more of them yet." Sharon turned toward a passageway leading left. "Not far, Cliff. We don't have far to go."

"Is Rebis okay? Can you tell?" Jane asked.

"Yes, I can tell, and no. Not okay. We had better move quickly."

They ran down the paths of the maze. Jane became Flaming Katy and threw fire from her hands at any other revenants they saw. Sharon carried the ball of yarn, since in this form, Jane would burn it. Cliff simply shouted.

"Larry! Larry, can you hear us? Are you there?"

"Rebis!" Flaming Katy joined in. "Rebis, where are you?"

"[There's no need to shout.]"

The three of them came to a screeching halt in front of a side tunnel. Rebis was there, looking unhurt, intently studying the wooden wall. "Larry!" Cliff shouted, and ran forward. "You don't know what we've been through, trying to find you!"

"[There really _is_ no need to shout, Cliff. I'm right here.]" S/he made no attempt to turn toward them, but continued to study the carvings on the wall.

"How do you feel?" Jane turned back into herself and came forward.

"[Fine. How else should I feel? This is fascinating. Jane, have you taken a good look at these carvings?]"

"No, I haven't had time. We--"

"You have to come back now," Sharon said, urgently. "We've mapped out the way."

Rebis appeared to notice Sharon's presence for the first time. S/he glanced at Sharon, and then turned back to the wall, floating a bit further down the passage, away from them. "[I don't intend to go back just yet.]"

"You don't _intend?_" Cliff stared, a mounting fury rising inside him. "We bust our asses to rescue you, risk our lives, and you don't _intend_ to come _back?_"

"[I haven't finished studying the Mandala. Cliff, you don't know. Everything's here.]" There was a faint edge of something tingeing the matter-of-fact voice-- longing? hunger? "[It's infinite. Infinite knowledge. The structure of the all.]"

"I don't care!" Cliff shouted. "We've come to rescue you, and we're damn well going to do it!" He reached to grab Rebis, who floated up over Cliff's head and out of his reach.

"Cliff, don't," Sharon said softly. "It's--" Abruptly she noticed Jane studying the carvings, and shoved her away from the wall. "Don't do that!"

"What did you do that for?" Jane shouted. "How the _hell_ do you expect me to understand this thing if I don't study it, you schizo bitch? I don't need you getting in my way!"

"Yes you do. Hammerhead, shut up and let Jane take back over."

"Why the fuck should I take your orders? Who died and made you God?"

"Rebis will, and then the rest of us, if you don't shut up and let me talk."

"There's nothing wrong with that asshole. S/he's just a cold-blooded freak who doesn't give a shit about the rest of us and doesn't deserve to be--"

"_Jane!_" Sharon shouted. "Somebody reasonable take over for Hammerhead, _now!_"

Jane's face cleared. "We need Hammerhead," she said. "The woman feels a great deal of anger."

"The woman can control herself for ten minutes," Sharon said in an icy voice. "This isn't her emotion-- or not completely, at any rate. It's being imposed. Look at Rebis, both of you." Rebis was still floating next to the wall, tracing patterns on it with hes hand, paying no apparent attention to the conversation.

"Typical," Cliff snarled. "Larry, have you listened to a word we've said?"

"[What?]" Rebis looked down. "[Cliff, please don't bother me. I'm very busy.]" And turned back.

"That's not normal," Sharon said. "Not even for Rebis. Is it?"

"I don't know," Cliff said darkly. "Sometimes..."

"Please, try to control your anger. It isn't entirely your own. This is _not_ normal. Trust me. For one thing, Rebis is very badly energy-drained. Do either of you see any sign of it?"

"No," Cliff said.

"How do you know s/he's drained?" Jane demanded.

"Because I can read Rebis's memories. We're still in her head, after all. And I know what's going on better than ego does. The Mandala walls are an obsession. Ego is fixated on them, to the point that she-- he-- oh, hell, I might as well be consistent. That she hasn't noticed that the Mandala is draining her life force. How do you think the Mandala holds powerful people here?"

"A charm," Jane said slowly. "S/he's caught by a charm."

"Oh," Cliff said. "Oh, _shit_."

"Rebis is so obsessed, in fact, that she's extremely angry with us for trying to interfere with her obsession. We can't see it on the surface, because ego is badly disjuncted from her emotions--"

"Nothing new there," Cliff muttered.

"But because we're still in Rebis's mind, we're picking it up subconsciously. It's manifesting in _us_, magnifying our natural annoyance into full-blown rage."

Cliff looked up at Rebis, who was about ten feet over all their heads and totally oblivious to anything but the wall carvings. "So we've got to persuade him to come back against some kind of brainwashing spell?"

"That's about it."

Jane sagged. "How do we do that?"

"We argue with him, I guess," Cliff said.

"S/he won't listen. We don't see it that often, Cliff, but Rebis is one of the most stubborn--"

"And self-centered."

"That too. If s/he's so obsessed with those damn walls that s/he's ignoring an _energy_ drain--"

"I've got an idea. Hey, Larry!"

"[Cliff, I _did_ ask you not to bother me--]"

"We need your help down here. There's a problem."

"[Can it wait?]"

"It'll only take a minute."

Jane stared at Cliff, and slowly began to smile. "I see," she murmured. "Let's hope it works." Sharon looked at both of them blankly.

"[What exactly is the problem?]"

"I'm not sure," Jane said. "I'm getting something weird from this section of floor, but I'd like you to take a closer look at it. Please, Rebis?"

Rebis descended. "[I didn't notice anything about the floors before,]" s/he said. "[That's very odd. What sort of feeling?]"

"I can't really put it into words. It's very localized. Right over here." She patted the spot right in front of Cliff, and straightened.

"[Over here?]"

"Yes. Right here." As Jane motioned with her foot, Cliff moved in behind Rebis, who knelt down.

"[Strange. I don't detect--]"

At this point Cliff grabbed Rebis, locking his arms around the hermaphrodite's chest and pinning Rebis's arms to hes sides. "[Cliff, what are you _doing?_]"

"Sorry about this, Larry." Rebis was heavier than s/he looked, but nowhere near heavy enough to give Cliff trouble. "You're coming with us whether you like it or not."

"[_Let me go!_]" Rebis began to struggle in Cliff's grasp. S/he wasn't strong enough to get loose without using the Negative Spirit. "[Cliff, I don't want to hurt you--]"

"Then don't. Just relax. You've been brainwashed. We've come to rescue you."

"[No one is doing anything to my mind. I would know it if they tried.]"

"Would you?" Sharon said. "Your head is riddled with memory blocks and disorganized besides, you're disjuncted from your own emotions-- you would know it if someone was telepathically altering your mind, but did you sense us walking around in your memories? Did you sense the claim the Mandala put on you?"

"[Let me go,]" Rebis said, in a distinctly weaker voice.

"You see? You're beginning to realize how drained you are."

"Listen," Cliff said. "If you don't get out of here, you'll turn into one of those skeleton creatures, and we will, too. We can't leave until you do."

"[I want to know,]" Rebis said, almost in a whisper. "[So much to learn... Let me _go._]" S/he began struggling violently again. "[I'll force you if I have to, Cliff.]"

"You can't," Sharon said. "The Negative Spirit knows that if it separates from you here, you'll become a revenant. Only its energy is keeping you alive."

"How do you know that?" Cliff asked.

"Rebis knows it, but ego can't realize it. Listen to the deeper levels, Rebis. Listen to yourself. You can't release the Negative Spirit and you haven't the strength to fight back."

"[I...]" Abruptly Rebis sagged, all the strength going out of hir.

"Larry?" Cliff lowered Rebis to the ground. "Larry, can you hear me?"

Sharon shook her head. "Something's happening. Something's falling apart... The memory traces are getting chaotic."

"I think I know what it is." Jane knelt next to Rebis. "The drain's picking up. We've got to get out of here. Rebis? You can hear me, can't you?"

"[Yes... so weak... why... so weak? I...]"

"It was the glamour of the Mandala, keeping you going," Jane said. "It's killing you now. Do you understand? Are you going to stop fighting us now?"

"[We... unity damaged. Connections broken. I. I am not. We... disintegrating... the Mandala... pulling...]"

"Disintegrating?" Cliff didn't like the sound of that. "Sharon, Jane, can we get him out of here now?"

"We have to." Jane got to her feet. "Things are worse than I thought. We have to get out of here _now._"

"I won't argue." Cliff picked up Rebis again, lifting hir in his arms. This time, Rebis seemed significantly lighter, as if s/he were partially hollow. "Sharon, do we still have that yarn trail?"

Sharon was shaking. "Yes," she whispered. "But it's... things are falling apart. I don't know if we'll make it out in time..."

"Then we'd better move! Come on!"

They began to run back along the yarn line, Sharon winding it as they went. The Mandala walls were cracking. At one point, an abyss nearly opened under Jane's feet, but she leapt over it. "What the hell?" Cliff shouted, looking at Sharon.

"She's _dying!_" Behind the glasses, Sharon's eyes were even wider than before, popeyed with fear. "Hurry, hurry!"

"[Disintegration,]" Rebis whispered, so softly Cliff could barely hear hir.

By the time they'd reached the beginning of the yarn trail, the green glow in the air was visibly faded, and there were cracks and holes everywhere. "The psychescape is falling apart," Sharon whispered, rigid with terror. "We're inside a dying mind. We're never going to get out."

"Take us back across!"

"I _can't!_ There's a disjunction! Rebis has to do it and there's no way she's strong enough!"

"Did you hear that, Larry?" Cliff asked urgently. "Can you do it?"

Rebis didn't appear to hear. "[don't... please... yanking...]"

"Rebis!" Cliff shook the limp form in his arms. "Can you hear me?"

"I know what's happening," Jane said. "Put hir down."

Cliff obeyed. "What _is_ happening?"

"Disintegration. They're losing it. Falling apart." Jane knelt beside Rebis. "Rebis. Do you want to stop the disintegration? Do you want to hold together?"

"[...jane?...]"

"Listen to me. You have to get out of the Mandala and back to your own mind. It'll take all the energy you have left, but you won't disintegrate. Concentrate! Please!" She motioned at the other two. "Come here."

"It's collapsing!" Sharon wailed.

"No, it's _not!_ Come on! We need to lend Rebis our strength, s/he doesn't have enough left to make it out of here. All of us, link hands." Cliff and Sharon sat on either side of Jane and clasped her hands. She then placed the clasped hands in each of Rebis's. "Take what you need. Come on!"

A wave of cold, of draining-- sickness, disorientation, nausea--

--and Cliff was staring up at the ceiling lights. He got to his feet. Sharon was on the cot, her brown skin tinged with an unhealthy grayish shade, and Jane was still on the floor, folded over. "Jane? Sharon? Did we do it?"

"Help me up, Cliff," Jane said. "I feel weak. Dr. Caulder, Josh, I think Rebis is going to need medical help."

Cliff helped Jane up. "What about Sharon?"

"She's a little worse drained than me-- I have more to spare, and it was her power that took us through. I'm more worried about Rebis. Cliff, look!"

Cliff looked, as Caulder and Josh came bursting in. "Look at what?"

"Rebis isn't glowing."

"Jane. What's the problem?" Caulder asked.

"Energy loss. S/he was very weak inside the Mandala, and burned a lot of energy getting back out."

"IV drip," Caulder said to Josh, who frowned even as he moved to do it.

"The circulation's too slow. We need something to increase heart rate, or the sugar won't get to the tissues in time. Oxygen mask?"

"Yes, good idea."

Sharon began to stir awake, while Cliff and Jane watched the Chief and Josh deal with Rebis. Josh had slid a stethoscope underneath the bandages, careful not to expose any of Rebis's radioactive skin. "I'm not getting a heartbeat-- wait, there-- but it's too slow, even for Rebis," Josh was saying. "Trying adrenaline."

"Ohh..."

"Sharon?" Cliff turned. "You all right?"

"My blood sugar is probably ridiculously low..."

"I'll get you some orange juice," Jane promised, and ran for the kitchen, shouting, "Dorothy, come here! I need some help!"

When Jane came back, it was with a pitcher of orange juice and glasses. Dorothy was toting a box of chocolate ice cream and several spoons. "Here you go," Jane said, pouring Sharon a glass. "Have some ice cream as well."

"Heartbeat's increasing..." Josh removed his stethoscope. "I think we ought to check body temperature as well. These bandages are only supposed to block the high wavelengths, right?"

"Yes, that's why the green glow."

"Normally there's radiant heat, too. At least, when I did the baseline physical on the whole team, Rebis's bandages were a lot warmer than this."

"Josh, that's a function of the radiation, not the body temperature--"

"Yeah, but they might be linked. I'm going to check it."

"Use a mercury thermometer, then. The radiation will damage an electronic one."

"I think he's waking up," Cliff said.

Josh paused in his quest for a thermometer. "Rebis? Rebis, can you hear me?"

Rebis's eyes opened and blinked several times. "[...light...]"

"The shades," the Chief said. "Cliff, what did you do with Rebis's shades?"

"In my pocket." Cliff removed the shades and placed them on Rebis's face.

"How do you feel? Can you tell us?" Caulder asked.

"[...cold... can't move...]"

"Drink this," Jane said, offering hir a glass of the orange juice. Josh and Cliff propped Rebis up on a pillow, so s/he could drink a little of the orange juice without dripping it all over hes bandages. Jane had to hold the glass. After the orange juice, she spoonfed Rebis some ice cream.

"Is it getting better?" Jane asked. "Do you feel like you're getting any stronger?"

"[...little... damaged... we're...]"

"Don't talk," Cliff advised.

"Let me get some blankets," Josh said. "Those bandages leak heat."

Jane fed Rebis some more orange juice. Josh came back with blankets, and piled them on the cot, tucking them in around Rebis. "I don't know if this'll help or not, but it can't hurt."

"[yes... thank you...]" Rebis's voice was slightly stronger. "[...need sleep... please...]"

"Right." Cliff looked at Sharon, who was lying back on her cot. "You feel well enough to get up?"

"How long were we in there?"

Cliff looked at the Chief, who answered, "Six hours."

"Six _hours?_" Cliff said disbelievingly.

"Sounds right... believe I need some sleep myself." Sharon yawned. "Just leave me here. I won't disturb Rebis."

"All right," Caulder said, nodding. "Josh, if you could get that Mandala? I'd like to have a look at it myself before Rebis wakes up."

They all filed out, turning out the lights.

* * *

Eleanor was holding a party at the apartment in Santa Luisa. There were some guests there she didn't remember inviting, like the Scissormen over in one corner, conversing in their incomprehensible language with one of the Pale Police. Emily Stark was there, wearing bandages for burns. She came up to Eleanor holding a cup of blood and effused, "Now I look just like you! Isn't magic a wonderful thing?"

"Wonderful," Eleanor said politely. There was a sense of lurking awfulness hanging over everything, but she couldn't put her finger on it. Something was wrong.

Val Vostok was having an argument with Rita Farr, over whether beating up on little brothers was child abuse or justifiable homicide. Having had a little brother, Eleanor would have argued the latter, but she didn't feel like arguing at all. Dan and Josh were talking philosophy. Eleanor had never before noticed how much they looked alike. Dan was bleeding from a neck wound, and it was staining the floorboards, making a puddle at his feet. "Dear, you're bleeding," Eleanor told him.

"Your coat is up in the closet upstairs," Dan said.

"No, no. We're storing it at headquarters, in mothballs. The Chief wants to figure out why it changes color," Josh said. There were small insects crawling on his face. Eleanor excused herself from them.

"Great party, Larry," Cliff said, knocking back a glass of motor oil.

"Cliff, how many times do I have to tell you I'm not Larry?"

"Just because you're a black woman in a party dress is no reason you can't be Larry."

"After all," Rita said, "we hardly ever saw what you looked like. You could have turned into something else under the skin." She was visibly rotting. Eleanor wanted to tell her to go rot somewhere else, but really, it'd been so long since they'd seen her.

The Chief was dissecting Rhea, who was lying on a table as part of the decor. The party was going wrong somehow. Eleanor's and Larry's mothers were off discussing recipes as they knitted a homunculus out of glowing green yarn. "Dan, please go put a bandage on your neck," she said. It was very distracting to see the blood eating away at the floorboards.

"Do you have any to spare?"

"Only radiation-proof ones. Not for blood."

"Oh. I bet you don't still bleed." He handed her a wooden doll. It was painted red and yellow, ludicrously bright, and had a hideous clown face. "Here's a gift. Open it up!"

Eleanor didn't want to open the doll. Something horrible was inside. She knew. But there was a compulsion tugging at her. Open the doll, see what comes out.

The doorbell rang. Gratefully Eleanor said, "I have to get the door," and went without opening the doll. A short black woman with amber eyes, wearing a lab coat, was standing there. Eleanor knew her from somewhere, but couldn't recall where. The hospital? Med school? The Air Force? No, he hadn't known any women in the Air Force. "Hello?" Eleanor said.

"Are you Rebis?" the woman asked.

Yes, of course. Why had s/he been thinking s/he was still Eleanor? "[Of course,]" Rebis said. The red party dress really didn't go well with the white of the bandages, and the black tie and work boots just made it look stupider. [What's wrong with me?] "[Who are you?]"

"Dr. Sharon Dilliard. I don't know if you realize this, but you're having a nightmare. Would you like to wake up?"

The Scissorman was snipping up the furniture, and something was slithering out of Dan's blood to eat the pieces. The Chief was pulling Larry's old model planes and comic books out of Rhea's torso, and Rita and Emily were swapping death stories. "[How very odd,]" Rebis said. "[I haven't dreamed since-- are you _sure_ this isn't happening?]"

"Can't you feel more than you can when you're awake?"

The doll. A sense of lurking horror. Yes. The irrational dread building within hir was much more immediate and uncomfortable than it would ordinarily be-- as if s/he was, in fact, Eleanor again, or Larry. In a spasm of sudden terror, s/he asked, "[Am I myself? Are we-- how many am I now?]"

"I think you're as many as you're supposed to be," Sharon Dilliard said. "You're just having a bad dream, as I said. Do you want to wake up before the real nastiness begins?"

Dan was coming forward with the doll, staining the carpet and the floor as he walked. "Hey, Eleanor! Don't forget this!"

If s/he stayed, s/he would be forced to open the doll. "[Yes,]" Rebis said forcefully, and was surprised to hear fear in hes own voice. "[Yes, I want to wake up.]"

"All right." The woman stepped back outside, and Rebis had to turn to face Dan, and the doll.

"Come on, Eleanor. It's _your_ party."

"[I'm not Eleanor.]" Maybe that could get hir out of having to open the doll, s/he hoped. But no one was having any. The bleeding wound in Dan was getting bigger and bigger, and something vaguely enameled was visible in the gap, like giant teeth.

"Yes you are. You're still linked to Eleanor whether you like it or not. Now _open the doll_. It's a gift!" He placed it in Rebis's bandaged hands, which began to tremble.

[How interesting. I'm actually very afraid.]

"Go on!" Jane said, her arm around rotting Rita, who was grinning skeletally. "Open it, Rebis. Nothing _really_ bad can happen!"

"It's _only_ a baby," Mother-- one of them, or both-- was saying. "It's _only_ a child."

"Get this show on the road, Larry," Cliff said, chomping on his arm. It had been ripped off by parties unknown, and bled oil.

[There's no way I can get out of this, is there?]

[_I don't think so. We're going to have to open it._]

Reluctantly, slowly, Rebis began to unscrew the top of the doll.

Then someone was shaking hir. "Wake up! Wake up!"

For a moment of disorientation, Rebis thought that whatever had been inside the doll was shoving hir back and forth. Then hes eyes opened. In the dim light cast by hes own glow, s/he saw a woman bending over hir, shaking hir.

"[I'm... awake. Thank you.]"

"Sorry it took so long, dream-time," the woman said. "I had to wake myself up first, and time passes much faster in dreams. How do you feel?"

Rebis sat up. S/he was in the infirmary, lying on a cot, with blankets tucked in around hes body. There was a black woman in a rumpled pale dress standing barefoot in front of hir. Hes body felt cold and sluggish, and ached a bit, but s/he dimly remembered being so weak and cold that death had seemed imminent. "[Somewhat... recovered, I think. Where are my clothes?]"

"Over there someplace." The woman gestured. "I can't _believe_ I slept in mine. They are going to smell so bad... thank the Lord I packed new ones."

Rebis retrieved hes clothes from the pile someone had dropped them in, slightly annoyed. Now they would have wrinkles. "[I know you,]" s/he said. "[Where did I meet you?]"

"In the Mandala. Professor Caulder hired me to fish you out."

"[You were in my dream.]"

"Yes. Sorry about that-- when I'm asleep near someone else, I tend to go dreamwalking."

"[I'm afraid I've forgotten your name, Doctor--?]"

"Dilliard. Sharon Dilliard."

"[Yes. I've heard of you.]" S/he finished knotting hes tie. "[An article in an AMA journal, six years ago, regarding the use of paranormal abilities in medicine.]"

"_That_ thing. I remember that."

"[I need to tell the others what I've learned.]"

"What time is it?"

"[How would I know?]"

"I thought you might have a time sense. I'm very hungry." She located a clock. "Um. Looks like it's morning. Do you guys eat breakfast around here?"

"[Yes. They might be in the kitchen.]"

* * *

Rebis and Sharon entered the kitchen. Jane was there, munching on toast. "Good morning, sleepyheads," she said. "How do you feel?"

"[Mostly recovered. Thank you.]"

"Sharon?"

"Oh, I'm all right. Hungry, grungy and smelly, but otherwise fine. I need something to eat, and then I need a shower and a change of clothes. Do you mind if I just make myself something to eat? I don't want to be any trouble."

"Go right ahead. There's eggs in the fridge." Jane turned to Rebis. "So, did you find out what you went in there to find out?"

"[Yes. I think I would like some coffee. It's been a very long time since I've had coffee.]"

"There's still some in the pot. What _did_ you find out?"

Rebis poured hirself a cup of coffee and sat down. "[It's called the Mandala of Eternity. It absorbs life energy from people--]"

"Well, we _know_ that."

"[--but if used properly, the energy can be taken back, and used to grant the owner eternal life.]" Neither of them noticed Sharon suddenly stiffen and turn, looking at them.

"So that explains why someone would want it."

"[It has other powers, as well. It--]"

"Wait. Let me go get Cliff; we should bring him in on this."

"[Yes. Good idea.]"

Jane left. Sharon brought her breakfast-- a bagel with American cheese melted onto it-- to the table, and sat down. "Eternal life?"

"[Yes. If used properly.]"

"Pretty impressive," Sharon said, studying her orange juice intently.

Jane returned with Cliff. "Larry! How do you feel?"

"[Improved. Thank you. I was discussing with Jane what I've learned from the Mandala.]"

"Well, go ahead. Shoot."

"[The Mandala of Eternity has existed for thousands of years. It may date back to the dawn of time. It consumes the life force of those who touch it or probe it without taking the proper precautions. In the hands of those who know how to use it, however, it can provide immense power. It can grant eternal life, or the power to reshape reality in one's own image. Throughout the centuries, it has been pursued by many secret organizations, cults, societies and cabals, many whose members ended up in the Mandala as revenants. Most of these groups were eventually destroyed by it. It is said that part of the soul of Death was fragmented off and bound into the Mandala, providing it with its occult powers as well as a certain sentience. There are other rumors, which I forget.]"

"And it has the power to mesmerize people inside it," Jane said. "Don't forget that."

"[I haven't. Mostly it traps magicians, scholars and others who tried to use it or investigate it. It uses the hunger for knowledge to lure these people, so they don't even realize they're dying until it's too late.]"

"Like it was almost too late for you," Cliff said. "So. What's next?"

"[I don't know. I know _why_ someone is pursuing it, but not--]"

The phone rang. "I'll get it," Cliff said, and picked up the closest extension. "Doom Patrol, Cliff Steele speaking." He held the phone several moments, then said, "To _who?_ I'm sorry, could you speak-- To Eleanor Poole?" He turned his head away from the phone. "Rebis, there's a hysterical woman on the line who wants to talk to Eleanor Poole."

"Nobody here by that name!" Jane caroled.

"[I'll take it.]"

"Eleanor _Poole?_" Sharon said.

"Yeah. That was one of Rebis's selves, before," Cliff said. "Why?"

"I'd _heard_ of Eleanor Poole. My _lord_, what a small world this is. I never thought she'd been _that_ Eleanor."

Rebis was attempting to get the sobbing woman on the phone to make sense. "[Who is this, exactly?]"

"You don't even kn-_know_, do you! You _killed_ him, you bitch, and you d-don't even _know!_"

"[Killed who? Please, who _are_ you?]"

"You remember _D-Dan!_ Don't you?"

"[Dan? Yes. I remember him-- what's happened?]"

"He's _dead!_ You got him killed, you bitch, you and those th-_things_--" She dissolved into sobs.

"[Dan's dead? Who _are_ you?]"

"M-my name's Gienia Taylor. I was-- I was his-- they _killed_ him-- those _things_--"

"[Are you at the apartment in Santa Luisa?]"

"It was _your fault!_"

"[Are you at the apartment in Santa Luisa?]" Rebis repeated.

"Yes-- I-- they _killed_ him--" More hysterical sobs.

"[We'll be right there.]" Rebis hung up.

"What is it?" Cliff asked.

"[My old fiancé. Dan Cartwright. He's been killed.]"

"By what?"

"[She wouldn't say, except that it was a 'thing'. I suspect a link between this and Emily Stark's death.]"

Jane nodded. "It makes an awful kind of sense," she said. "Let me get dressed."

"You said the woman on the phone was hysterical?" Sharon asked.

"[Yes.]"

"Then let me go along with you all. None of you strike me as the sort that inspire trust and warmth in hysterical people, and I have the training."

"That is a _very_ good idea," Cliff said. "Rebis, who was she?"

"[Her name is Gienia Taylor. She didn't say what she was to Dan, but I suspect she's his new girlfriend. Or was.]"

"Um. Yeah." Cliff looked away. Sharon and Jane left to get dressed, and Cliff turned back to Rebis. "Does-- I mean-- if all of this upsets you, it's all right to talk to us about it."

"[Thank you, Cliff, but I'm fine. I think.]"

"Well, whatever. I know you're pretty self-sufficient and all, but if you need anything, let me know."

"[Yes.]" Rebis returned for hes cup of coffee. "[It's very strange. I dreamed last night, for almost the first time since primary integration was completed. I'd thought it was because I was in danger of disintegrating, and I needed dreams again. But I'm not sure, now... It was a nightmare. I see through time, sometimes. Perhaps I should have let it run to the end... it might have told me something.]"

"Why do you think someone gave this Mandala thing to _you?_ Have you been able to figure that out yet?"

"[Not the foggiest. I wish they hadn't. This is getting to be a good bit more trouble than it's worth.]"

Cliff eyed Rebis askance for a second or two. "You know, even next to the Chief, you have the biggest talent for understatement I've ever seen."

* * *

The apartment was in a very nice section of Santa Luisa. "You used to _live_ here?" Jane asked, looking about wide-eyed, as they approached the building. "It's beautiful."

Rebis fished out a keychain from one of the pockets of the coat. It was attached to a loop, which on close inspection was a plastic snake biting its tail. The key, however, didn't fit. "[Hmm. They seem to have changed the locks.]"

"I'm not too surprised," Cliff muttered. "Ring the doorbell."

They did, and a few minutes later the door opened. A large and somewhat blowsy-looking young black woman with mocha-colored skin, extra-short hair and half a dozen earrings stared at them out of puffy red eyes. She reeked of perfume. "You-- are you--"

"We're superheroes. The Doom Patrol," Cliff said.

Her eyes focused on Sharon. "Are you Eleanor?"

"No, I'm Sharon Dilliard. _She's_ Eleanor." Sharon gestured at Rebis.

"[More or less. I take it you're Gienia? What happened?]"

Gienia stared at Rebis. "He said-- he said you'd turned into-- some kind of _freak_, but--"

"Ms. Taylor, we're here to investigate your boyfriend's death, not to listen to insults," Cliff said. "Could you _please_ let us in so we can do our job?"

"Who-- he said superheroes, but-- you don't look like--"

Cliff sighed. "I told you. We're the Doom Patrol. Cliff Steele, Crazy Jane, and Rebis, who you know as Eleanor. And Dr. Dilliard, special assistant. Like I said, we're here to investigate your boyfriend's death. Could you let us in--"

"--or do we knock you over?" Jane inquired sweetly.

Gienia moved out of the way with bad grace. "The apartment's upstairs," she muttered.

"[I know.]"

As they headed up the stairs, Sharon muttered, "Let me handle the girl."

"Go right ahead," Cliff said.

They entered the apartment, a large and expensive one which occupied the top two floors of the building. Rebis stopped, floating in the center of the room. "[Traces. Traumatic afterimages. They were here.]" S/he turned to Jane, "[Do you feel it?]"

"Yeah." Jane's head turned back and forth, searching. "Yes, I can feel them, like... it's like screaming... something crying..."

"What are you people talking about?" Gienia asked, nervous and hostile.

"They're investigating," Sharon said gently. "I know they seem strange, but they're very good at their jobs."

Rebis was wandering around, touching various objects and making comments to Jane. Cliff sat down in a sturdy chair across from the sofa, where Sharon and Gienia were sitting.

"We need to know _exactly_ what happened," he said. "Can you tell us what happened?"

"I--" The woman's eyes began to well with tears.

"Shh. It's all right, honey. We understand," Sharon said. "Now listen. We know you don't want to remember what happened. But we do have to know, or we can't stop whatever it was that killed Dan. So let me make a suggestion. I'm a trained psychiatrist. I can hypnotize you, so you can tell us _exactly_ what happened, without breaking down or losing control of yourself. Then when you wake up, you won't feel like you've had to remember it, or relive it. All right?"

The woman looked nervously around at the three Doom Patrollers. "I'm not sure--"

"They won't hurt you," Sharon said. "Trust me. They're just here to investigate what happened. I'm here to help you deal with it."

Gienia took a deep breath. "I don't want _her_ here," she said, motioning at Rebis. "It's her fault. She got him killed."

Cliff rolled his eyes-- which were, in fact, specially designed to be able to do that. Sharon nodded. "All right. Rebis, could you go upstairs for about ten minutes?"

Rebis looked at Sharon for a moment, trying to determine what she was playing at. Finally s/he nodded, once. "[All right.]"

As Rebis floated up the stairs, Jane said, concerned, "Sharon, what--"

"Shh." Sharon drew out a watch from her pocket, and swung it in front of Gienia's eyes. "You are getting sleepy..."

Gienia fell asleep.

Jane burst out laughing. "_That's_ not hypnosis," she said, and then studied Gienia carefully. "You did. You hypnotized her." She looked at Sharon. "You used your power, didn't you?"

"Of course. I'm not going to wait around for half an hour trying to hypnotize someone when I can do it in a minute, this way."

"Why the watch, then?"

"Props. I can't hypnotize someone unless they're willing and they think they're being hypnotized. You want to call Rebis down here?"

"You're going to have this woman tell us what happened?" Cliff asked. "Or what?"

"Well, what, actually. I'm going to take us in to view the memory. You guys will have more to work from, then."

"Right."

Jane headed upstairs. "Rebis?"

* * *

The apartment was thick with memories and the stench of madness overlaying. The only previous time Rebis had come here as Rebis had been just after the transformation, too disintegrated to perceive anything, psychometric or otherwise, in the emotional domain. Now--

Everything s/he touched had emotional resonances of hes life as Eleanor. Things s/he had forgotten, things s/he could no longer feel, were here, trapped in the fabric of all the objects. The last time Rebis had come here, blasted and weak still from the transformation, with no emotional integration to speak of, s/he had felt nothing. There had been Dan, who Eleanor had loved, but Rebis had felt nothing more for him than a vague sense of obligation. Here, now, halfway integrated and with some small emotional capacity, Rebis remembered what distant Eleanor had felt. Dan's life, his love.

His death. It resonated through the living room, with the stink of madness. A place where there had been love, once, poisoned throughout by the sick rot of the Mad Ones.

Rebis floated through the bedroom, picking things up and handling them occasionally, triggering memory and psychometric resonance. Remembering, when s/he had not remembered anything of this nature in months. A vague pain. [There's something-- what's wrong? What am I feeling?]

[_Reference back. Remember this pain. This is an emotion._]

[Yes.]

Rebis thought about it, fingering a paperweight Eleanor had given Dan years ago.

[I think I want to cry.]

[But I don't remember how.]

"Rebis?" Jane poked her head in the door. "We're ready now. Sharon's going to take us into the girl's memories."

"[Yes.]" Rebis turned and drifted out of the room, dropping the paperweight on the bed on hes way out.

Jane tilted her head to look up at hir. "Are you okay?"

"[Why wouldn't I be?]"

"Well, something just killed your former boyfriend and was probably gunning for you. That'd make _me_ upset."

Rebis was silent. "Right. Don't answer me. See if I care."

"[I'm tired, Jane.]"

Jane sighed. "I'm sorry... I should know better. I'll leave you alone."

They headed downstairs. Gienia was sitting on the couch with her eyes closed, hypnotized. "Take seats, people," Sharon said, waving at chairs. Cliff was already seated on the couch next to Gienia, and Sharon was perched on an arm. "We won't be below the bodily threshold, but this will be disorienting. Best to sit down." Jane and Rebis sat. "Now listen carefully. We won't be able to use any sort of special senses here-- all of will see, hear, and otherwise sense exactly what Gienia Taylor sensed. No more, no less."

"Right," Cliff said. "Just take us in."

The scene unfolded around them, replacing what they could see with an image, viewed from Gienia's point of view. She and Dan were playing Mille Bornes. "This happened late last night," Sharon said. Her voice sounded strangely unreal, like the voiceover narration on a television program.

As Gienia drew from the pile in hopes of getting a green light, there was a shimmering in the air. A glass boy in a suit and tie and a giant disembodied head appeared in the middle of the living room. Gienia screamed, and Dan moved to her side, as if to protect her.

"Who-- who the hell are _you?_" Dan gasped at the creatures.

"We're the Mad Ones," the glass boy said. "I'm Kisvallen, this is Maître." The head burped. "Something that rightfully belongs to us was stolen by a woman named Eleanor Poole. We know you know where she is."

"By-- Eleanor stole something? From _you?_"

"Well, undoubtedly she didn't realize she was stealing, but that's neither here nor here, nor here either. What we need is to know where she is, so we can take it back from her."

"BY FORCE," the head growled.

"_That_ wasn't necessary to say," Kisvallen said. "Didn't I tell you to shut up, Maître?"

"SORRY."

Dan shook his head. "I don't know where she is. Now get the hell out of my apartment!"

Kisvallen shook his head. "Can't do that."

"CAN I EAT'IM?"

"Naah. But you can eat his girlfriend if he doesn't talk."

"_What?_" Dan started forward as Gienia cowered back on the couch.

"Now I'll ask you again. Where is Eleanor Poole?"

"I told you I don't know! She turned into some sort of freak and left, _I_ don't know where!"

"Eat the girl, Maître."

"NUM NUM."

Gienia screamed as the head flew at her. Dan picked up the table and swung it at the head, which ate it. "YUM!"

"Gienia! Get out of here! _Run!_" Dan shouted.

"NO YOU DON'T," caroled Maître, and flew at Gienia, mouth open. Dan threw himself at the head and pounded on it. Maître turned, and chomped, and Dan was suddenly gripped in the things's mouth, screaming. Gienia was shrieking so loud it was hard to hear anything else, but even still the sound of Dan's screaming and an obscene slavering chomping noise were audible.

"Oh, _Maître_," Kisvallen said, sounding annoyed, as Dan's screams stopped. "_Now_ how are we going to get anything from him?"

"SORRY," Maître said, and burped. Gienia was sobbing hysterically.

"Oh well. Naomi found other connections. We'll find them out from her. I think there was an old lady in there somewhere."

"DON'T LIKE OLD LADIES. TOO CRUNCHY!"

"That's my point. Let's go." They walked over to the fireplace, climbed up inside, and vanished. A moment later the whole scene vanished as well.

"[He knew where I was,]" Rebis said. "[I told him, the Doom Patrol. Why didn't he--?]"

"Maybe he didn't want you to get hurt," Cliff suggested gently.

"Or maybe," Jane said acerbically, "he just forgot."

Sharon said, "I'm going to be working on Gienia. Don't try to wake me." She slumped in the chair, eyes open wide and blankly staring.

"Okay," Cliff said, and looked back and forth at the other two. "Any ideas?"

"I think Gienia was incredibly lucky," Jane said. "That thing was after her, not Dan."

"[Other connections. He mentioned other connections-- something there. Something _you_ said, Jane.]"

"Something _I_ said?"

"When?" Cliff asked.

"[I can't remember...]"

"Rebis?" Jane leaned forward, frowning. "If they were looking for Eleanor... why did they find Dan and Gienia, here?"

"[I would think they would be-- Old lady. No.]" Rebis stood. "[Cliff, I think my mother is in danger.]"

"Right. Where does she live?"

"[Alexandria. Just outside Washington DC.]"

"That's going to take us hours to get there. You want to call ahead and warn her? This _is_ Eleanor's mother we're talking about here, right?"

"[Yes. I don't think they have any knowledge of _me_. I don't know why they know me as Eleanor, but if they knew me as Larry, they'd have come to the Doom Patrol first.]"

"Right. Well, if you can call ahead and get her to move to a place of safety--"

"Cliff, exactly where is safe from beings that can just materialize in someone's living room?" Jane asked. "Even if Rebis called to warn her, what precautions could this woman _take?_"

Cliff thought about it. "Call ahead to see if she's still all right," he said. "Get her to go somewhere else-- it _might_ throw them off if she's not at home." He looked at Rebis. "Does your mother even _know_ about you?"

"[I don't think so. I didn't tell her.]"

"Well, there's something else. We're going to have to explain _that_. Not now, though. Just tell her you're a superhero and she's got to get out of the house. Or something."

"I'll drive us," Jane volunteered calmly, as Rebis picked up the phone and dialed.

"Who?"

"Driver 8. I've got a power, too, you know. It's just never come up before."

"[Mother, this is me. As soon as you get this message, get out of the house. There might be someone trying to kill you. Some people and I are coming to pick you up. Stay at Mrs. Johnson's.]"

"Warn her about what you look like," Cliff suggested.

Rebis hung up without doing so. "[Answering machine.]"

"I figured that. You should have told her about what you look like."

"[In thirty seconds?]"

Sharon opened her eyes. "I've taken care of Gienia," she said. "Would somebody like to help me get her to bed?"

"We don't have time," Cliff said. "We've got to get going-- Rebis's mother is in danger. Are you coming with us?"

"Ah-- all right, I think I'd better. I suppose we can leave Gienia on the couch."

"Right. Let's move!"

* * *

They piled into the car, and Driver 8 took the wheel. "I take short cuts," she said. "Let me see the road map."

Cliff, in the back seat, leaned forward and handed it to her, spread out. "We're trying to get to Alexandria..."

"Right. I've got it. We can probably make it in an hour."

"To Alexandria? In Virginia? In an hour?" Sharon said disbelievingly.

"If she says she can do it, she can do it. What'd you do with the girl?"

Driver 8 pulled out of the parking lot. "Seat belts fastened, everyone? Here we go!" She stepped on the gas and tore down the street.

"Reworked her memories. She couldn't handle the truth-- it was going to drive her insane. I convinced her that Dan had been killed by muggers, who'd tossed his body in a trash compactor, while he was trying to save her. The horror is still there, but it's a rational horror now-- and I made sure she doesn't hate Rebis anymore. She remembers now that she called the Doom Patrol for help because Dan told her about Eleanor being a superhero, and she figured that she could use a superhero to investigate. She resents Rebis slightly for not being around to save Dan, but that's par for the course with superheroes, and as far as she's concerned, we drove off to find muggers. She still remembers the whole thing with the giant head, but now she thinks it was just a terrible dream."

"[Reversal. Transmuted dream becomes reality, so reality becomes a dream. Interesting.]"

"Are you sure that's morally right? Mucking with someone's head like that?"

"I did it to prevent her from suffering a nervous breakdown. Some people can handle the idea of a giant head eating their lover, and some people can't. They--" Sharon broke off with a terrified shriek, as Driver 8 drove straight for the nearest subway entrance. "She's going to kill us!" she screamed.

"She is _not!_ Calm down!" Cliff shouted back.

"[Symbolic egress. We're not in the linear world anymore.]"

"No, we're not," Driver 8 agreed. "We're taking a shortcut through the Underground."

It didn't look quite as Cliff remembered it. They were traveling along a line whose stations were empty and deserted. The car remained shaped like an automobile on the inside, but outside it had turned into a lone subway car, rocketing along the deserted line. "Jane? Where exactly are we?"

"We're using a part of the Underground that we haven't expanded into yet. It's not very well-defined. This is just the area I use for long-distance travel."

"I see," Sharon murmured. "There's a psychescape around us. Externalizing the mind into a parallel dimension? Or something..."

"What's our strategy?" Cliff asked Rebis. "I mean, when we turn up on your mother's doorstep, what's her reaction likely to be? You did say she doesn't know about you..."

"[I don't think she does. I didn't tell her.]"

"So what are we going to do?"

"[If she's alive still, we'll get her out of the house and take her with us. We also should pick up my younger brother and sister. If they're following up connections to Eleanor... Bring them to headquarters. If nothing else, we can force a confrontation. I don't know. Do you have a plan?]"

"I was hoping you did. All right. Pull your folks out and take them back with us. Then what? We've got to find out more about the Mad Ones and why they're after the Mandala, how they keep finding you, and why someone gave the thing to you in the first place."

"Maybe you could just give these Mad Ones the Mandala back?" Sharon suggested tentatively.

Cliff looked at her. "We can't _do_ that. These people are insane. God only know _what_ they'd do with the Mandala, but we can't let it fall into their hands."

"[Perhaps that's why.]"

"Why what?"

"[Why me. One could be reasonably sure that the Doom Patrol would go out of its way to protect the Mandala from the Mad Ones. I might have been chosen in particular because I like things like this. Or because the Mad Ones can't seem to perceive me for what I am. If someone wanted to escape the burden of protecting the Mandala themselves, but wanted to ensure it wouldn't be taken...]"

"Yeah. You could be right. Damn, I hope we don't end up having to make a career of fighting these Mad Ones. The Cult of the Unwritten Book was bad enough."

"Maybe we can beat them fairly easily," Driver 8 said. "We didn't know what to expect last time."

"And this time we do? Besides, we've got civilians to protect." Cliff turned to Sharon. "Is there any way you can use your powers in a combat capacity?"

Sharon shook her head rapidly, eyes wide. "I'm no superhero. I don't want to get myself killed. I've died too often, I know what it's like."

"No one's asking you to make a career out of it. All I'm saying is, could you protect yourself reasonably well if we got into a fight? You don't have to help us, but if you could just manage not to be a burden it'd be a big help."

"Yes. No. I don't know. I have no idea. I've never needed the powers for that before." Sharon was shaking. "He said, he said, I could use them in self-defense, so maybe I can. Bad dreams. I protected myself at Arkham but they're all crazy. Maybe, since the Mad Ones are probably crazy too. I don't know."

Cliff did not like the looks of this. The woman was obviously terrified. She had gone unnaturally rigid, and the blood had left her face, turning her gray. If it came to a combat scenario, they would probably have to protect her. In addition to Rebis's relatives, who undoubtedly would not be happy to learn what had become of their Eleanor. "Great," he muttered. "Wonderful."

* * *

Leona Poole came in from a shopping trip, and saw that the light on her answering machine was blinking. She played the message.

"Mother, this is me. As soon as you get this message, get out of the house. There might be someone trying to kill you. Some people and I are coming to pick you up. Stay at Mrs. Johnson's."

"_Eleanor!_" Leona played the message again, but it had nothing more to say. The voice was Eleanor's, but... different somehow. Flatter. Deeper, maybe, a little. "Eleanor, what's _happened_ to you?"

Though they were an emotionally close family, they weren't in contact all that often. It had been three months after Eleanor's accident that Leona, worried that she hadn't heard from her daughter in so long, had called her apartment-- and gotten Dan, who told her that they'd broken up. Eleanor had had an accident. Something to do with a superhero team. He had given her the number Eleanor had left with him, where she could be reached, but when Leona called it, she'd gotten a Dr. Caulder, who told her that Eleanor was ill and did not want to talk to her. She'd tried to find out where this Caulder lived, to track Eleanor down, but she hadn't even known where to start. Neither the hospital, Dan, nor Caulder would tell her the exact nature of Eleanor's accident-- Dan said it involved superheroes, the hospital said to ask Dr. Caulder, and Caulder had said that if Eleanor wanted to tell her mother, that was her place-- it was personal and private and Caulder was not about to tell Leona what it was against Eleanor's apparent wishes. Stonewalled. It had built a fury in her, these past few months, hearing nothing from Eleanor, having no way to track her down.

Now Eleanor had called, for the first time in months, but had made no attempt to explain herself. "Someone might be trying to kill you. Some people and I are coming..." Some people? What people? Who could be trying to kill her? And Melody Johnson had been dead for two months-- Leona was certainly not going to go to her house. She was staying right here until Eleanor showed up and gave her a decent explanation for all this.

And it had better be a _really_ good explanation at that.

* * *

The scene on pg. 18 is a direct retelling of events in _Doom Patrol_ #19.

Copyrights: Doom Patrol, Cliff Steele, Crazy Jane, Rebis, Dr. Caulder, Josh Clay and Dorothy Spinner are all ©DC Comics. All other characters created by Alara Rogers. All resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental, with one exception, my Roommate From Hell.


	3. Chapter 3

The car hurtled out of the Underground in a somewhat dilapidated neighborhood of Alexandria, VA. Cliff looked around slowly. "_This_ is where your mother lives?"

"[She's at home.]" Rebis leaned forward and pointed. "[That way. I told her to get out of the house, but she didn't.]"

"Well, what do you expect? Some strange guy calls claiming to be her daughter--"

"[She would have heard me as Eleanor. I don't really sound that much like Larry, Cliff-- it's mostly your imagination.]"

"Cliff has a point," Jane said, pulling the car around a corner at a speed nearly sufficient to tip it over on its side. "She doesn't know what's happened to you, so why should she do what you said?"

"_My_ mother would be frantic," Sharon said. "Come to think of it, my mother probably _is_ frantic."

"[There.]" Rebis pointed to an old brick house, part of a series of old brick houses that melted into each other. This one was distinguishable from the others only by the flowerboxes on the upstairs windowsill and the dead Christmas lights still wrapped around a barren flagpole. "[She's in there.]"

"She all right?" Cliff asked as Jane brought the car to a screeching halt.

"[So far.]"

"So far" meant they could take the time to knock on the door instead of simply breaking it down-- which they might have done anyway, if it hadn't been the mother of a team member they were dealing with. Cliff thumped the door hard enough to make it vibrate, and Jane leaned on the doorbell for ten unbroken seconds. When Leona Poole finally appeared, a small, wiry woman with graying hair wearing a faded floral print dress, she stood staring at them slack-jawed for about a minute before Cliff realized that Rebis wasn't going to take the conversational initiative. Which shouldn't have come as any surprise-- Rebis almost never did-- but Cliff had instinctively expected hir to say something, this being hes mother, after all.

"Mrs. Poole?"

"Who _are_ you... people?"

"Mrs. Poole, we're the Doom Patrol." Cliff decided this was not the time to go into Rebis' status. "We're superheroes. Your daughter Eleanor thought you were in danger and--"

"_Where is Eleanor?_" Leona shouted, grabbing Cliff's shoulders and pulling herself up into his face. "I know about you people-- you're the outfit that that Caulder man runs, aren't you? What have you done with my daughter?"

"[Mother, there isn't time for this.]"

Leona released Cliff and turned to stare at Rebis. "...Eleanor?"

"[We have to--]"

"Eleanor, honey, what have they _done_ to you?" Leona cried, grabbing an unresisting Rebis and pulling hir into the living room. The others followed. Jane nudged Sharon.

"Are you going to do something, or what?"

"What 'something'?"

As Rebis drifted to a stop, Leona apparently realized that s/he was floating six inches off the ground, and gasped. "You're _floating!_"

"[We don't have time, Mother. There're some people who probably want to kill you. Could we discuss this later?]"

"You really ought to do something," Jane whispered. "She's going to have hysterics. Ten to one."

"_Later?_" Leona shrilled. "Where on God's green Earth _were_ you all this time? The hospital said you'd had an accident, and this Dr. Caulder person wouldn't tell me what had happened to you, or where you were, or _anything!_ And now-- you're _floating_, you sound funny, you're wearing _bandages_, you're glowing-- you're taller, I know you are--"

Sharon stepped forward. "Let me explain, Mrs. Poole. I'm Dr. Sharon Dilliard--"

"I don't _care_ who you are, girl, I want to know what you've done with my daughter!"

"[I'm not entirely your daughter anymore. Gestalt. The whole is greater than the sum of the parts.]"

Cliff put his hand to his head. Rebis had just blown any chance they could convince this woman to come with them without explaining the whole situation. "Brilliant move, Rebis. Now I know why you didn't tell her about this before."

"Mrs. Poole," Sharon tried again, "if you'll just calm down--"

"I'm not calming down! My daughter shows up in _bandages_--"

"[I just told you. I'm _not_ really your daughter.]"

Leona gaped. "_What?_"

Cliff rounded on Rebis. "Good _going_, asshole! Are you _trying_ to get her killed?"

"[We could just--]"

"WILL EVERYONE PLEASE SHUT UP FOR TWO SECONDS?" Jane screamed.

In the sudden, stunned silence, she turned to Leona. "We'll explain whatever you want to know, _later_. Right now there's something trying to _kill_ you--"

"Exactly," a cheery voice caroled. "Or at the very least, to rip up all your fluffy pillows. Which is a fate worse than death, don't you think?"

Kisvallen came in from the kitchen, followed by a tall blonde girl with a childish face and a giant floating pineapple with eyes on every facet. Sharon bolted for the front door, yanked it open-- and shrieked as Maître roared at her. She threw herself behind Cliff. "Did I forget to mention the fact that I'm a total and complete coward?" she whimpered.

Maître squeezed through the door, accompanied by wraiths of some sort. The pineapple fired sticky glue strands out of an eye at Leona. Rebis released the Negative Spirit, which snapped the glue strands, while Jane fired bolts of some energy at the wraiths. "Rebis! I'll take Maître!" Cliff shouted. "Get your mother and Sharon out of here!"

"[Right!]" The Negative Spirit spun inward to fly rapid protective circles around Rebis as s/he picked up hes mother in one arm and Sharon with the other. "[Hang on.]" S/he flew for the staircase and up to Eleanor's old bedroom as the Negative Spirit defended the stairs.

"We're going to die," Sharon moaned. "We're all going to die. They'll break open our bones and suck out the marrow."

"What's going on? What _are_ those things?" Leona asked frantically. "I told you you shouldn't have gotten involved treating superheroes!"

Rebis deposited them on the bed, slamming the door behind hir. There was only one bed, Lauren's; Eleanor's had been removed a long time ago, and the room redecorated to her little sister's tastes. Which s/he had known, but forgotten. "[Sharon? Are you all right?]"

Sharon was trembling violently, her eyes rolled up in her head. "They're killing me. They're killing me."

"What's wrong with her?"

"[She thinks she's dying. Watch the door, I'll try to bring her out.]"

"You haven't answered any of my questions! What was that green-- _thing_-- that came out of you? Why are you in bandages-- what's _happened?_"

Sharon's psyche was in turmoil. She was retreating into her own death, closing barriers. It would take far too much time to try to break through her shields. "[The Negative Spirit is my other self. I'll explain the rest later. We have to get out of here.]" S/he lifted hes head away from Sharon, suddenly realizing something. "[Mother? Where's the fire escape door?]"

"The landlord said it was unsafe. Burglaries. They bricked it up. The new fire escape's a rope ladder in my bedroom."

"[Oh.]" There was no fire escape. The plan had revolved around the presence of the fire escape here. "[We could be in worse trouble than I thought.]"

Sharon clutched her heart and keeled over. Startled, Rebis looked at her harder, bringing to bear more of hes unique senses. S/he had previously assumed that Sharon's condition was a delusion, that, like Jane, Sharon would trap herself within her own mind. It was worse than that. Sharon's body lived, but her spirit was gone, yanked from her body, and Rebis didn't know whether that was normal for her or the Mad Ones' doing.

As s/he stood in hes old bedroom, debating what to do next, s/he was also downstairs as the Negative Spirit, fighting. The blonde girl, Guerra, had surrounded herself with a ring of fire, and was trying to burn the house down, being countered by Jane. Cliff was wrestling with Maître. The Negative Spirit had already caromed through the pineapple-head, destroying it, but the wraiths it had fought before were clinging to it like clammy cloud-bits, slowing it as it destroyed more wraiths. Kisvallen was not visible. Upstairs, Rebis happened to know that Kisvallen would come in if s/he opened the bedroom door, probably with reinforcements. On the other hand, Kisvallen's reinforcements could come in through an open window, too-- they had put the entire building into a kind of warp, halfway into their realm, and they could enter from any gateway at all.

The door was probably more defensible than the window. Rebis summoned the Negative Spirit back. "[Mother. Stay with Sharon by the bed.]" S/he yanked the door open-- and was met with an empty hallway. No Kisvallen, no Mad Ones.

The window smashed open. Leona screamed, yanking the unconscious Sharon off the bed by her legs. A homunculus with huge lobster claws clamped them on Sharon's head. The Negative Spirit lunged at the intruder-- and stopped, circling in helpless anger, as the giant lobster claws tightened threateningly on Sharon's skull.

"Wee jusst want the Mandaala," the homunculus hissed. "The Mandaala that Eleanoor stoole from uss."

"[For what purpose?]"

"It'ss _ourss!_"

"[I very much doubt it.]"

Leona turned toward Rebis. "Eleanor, you _stole_ something from them?" she asked disbelievingly.

[She's blown it! They know it's us now.]

[_Perhaps we can still salvage this?_]

[Doubtful, but we can try.]

"[My name is Rebis. Not Eleanor.]" It was true. S/he put the full force of belief behind it.

The homunculus wasn't shaken. "Kissvaallen photoed you. Naomi ssayss it'ss you, it'ss you. You haave our Mandaala."

"[I stole nothing. The Mandala was given to me. What are you offering in exchange?]"

"I give you thiss wooman'ss liffe in exsschange."

"[Very well.]" Rebis floated over to the door. "[It's in my bedroom. Come with me, and I'll get it.]"

The homunculus released Sharon and started to scuttle across the room. It didn't get far before the Negative Spirit pulverized it, and then proceeded to fry the other things trying to follow it through the window.

The weakness was beginning-- Rebis was starting to feel the effects of too much activity without the Spirit. But it couldn't be helped-- it was still needed outside to run interference. S/he scooped up Sharon and floated quickly out the door. "[Mother, come on.]"

"What do they want?" Leona panted, as they ran for the bedroom at the end of the hall.

"[A sacred mandala. An item of power. Something unimaginably destructive. If they--]"

Kisvallen stepped out of Donald's bedroom, between Rebis and Leona. He reached for Leona, his glass hands grasping her wrists. With the speed of thought, the Negative Spirit dove at Kisvallen.

Slurp.

It was as if a cage of glass slammed down around Rebis, cutting off or dimming most of hes extra senses. S/he dropped out of the air and crashed to hes knees in shock, Sharon's limp body bouncing out of hes arms to fall on the floor. Leona screamed and tore free. Kisvallen shoved Leona into Donald's room, slammed the door, and turned to Rebis. His glass body glowed with the energy of the trapped Negative Spirit.

[Mercurius in the genie bottle... _Like the Quiz again. Tricked again. Trapped..._ Bottle fly bottled. _letmefreeletmefreeletme_ Let us be one oh please oh please release us _Cold... it's so..._]

The shrieking chaos of hes thoughts drowned hir. Distantly Rebis sensed Kisvallen's approach. He lifted hes head by the chin. Rebis clamped both hands on Kisvallen's. Through the glass, through the bandages, s/he could feel the burning of the Spirit, and ached for it, a hunger that was food and drink and sex and love and everything else, everything good in the universe, held away from hir. S/he tried to break Kisvallen's hands, to release the Spirit, but the glass was strong and s/he was far too weak.

"I should've known," Kisvallen said softly. "The interference Naomi sensed... You're _not_ Eleanor Poole, but you are." He stepped back slightly, taking the warmth of life back out of reach. Rebis reached desperately, moaning weakly, and fell prone. "You know my price, if you want it back. Permission and location."

"[...no...]"

"Then you'll die." Kisvallen knelt on the floor, smiling maliciously. He clasped Rebis's hand in his own. The warmth was maddening-- to be separated from life, energy, completion, by such a tantalizingly thin glass membrane, and yet neither Rebis nor the Negative Spirit could break through. Inside Kisvallen, the Negative Spirit swirled frantically. "With your soul trapped within me, I don't need permission. It's part of you-- its permission is sufficient, and I'll get that when you're dead and its sentience is gone. All I need from you is location-- and now, you're weak enough that I can take it."

The other glass hand pressed against Rebis's forehead and into hes brain. Kisvallen was pulling images, trying to suck them out of Rebis and reproduce them in a photograph. The image of the Mandala, of Doom Patrol headquarters, of the Mandala's location there. Rebis marshalled the last of hes strength to fight the invasion, but every moment of struggle made hir weaker, closer to death.

[cliff?... _momma?_... help me...]

And suddenly warmth, light, life, flooded back into hir with the crash of shattering glass. Rebis looked up. Leona was holding Donald's metal baseball bat, smashing Kisvallen's head again and again. The glass, chipped and crazed, finally gave way with a rush of transparent, viscous liquid, like the vitreous humor of the eye. "_Don't-- touch-- my-- daughter!_"

Kisvallen's corpse toppled over. Rebis rolled away, to avoid the falling body, and started to sit up. Leona knelt by hes side. "Eleanor! Eleanor, honey doll, are you all right? Say something, baby!"

"[I'm... all right.]" Rebis got up, brushing glass shards off hirself. "[Thank you.]" S/he glanced at Sharon, determining if she'd been hurt in the fall, and was rather relieved to see that she wasn't. There would be bruises, but nothing serious. Her spirit was still missing, though.

"What was he _doing_ to you?"

Rebis picked Sharon up. "[He trapped the Negative Spirit away from me. There's only so long I can go without it, and I was reaching my limit anyway.]"

"It gives you those superpowers, doesn't it. Like flying."

"[Yes.]"

With Kisvallen's death, all the remaining Mad Ones had retreated. Rebis headed downstairs. Maître's corpse lay bleeding on the rug, his huge skull broken in a dozen places by Cliff's metal fists. Guerra, s/he sensed, had fled.

Cliff looked up at Rebis. "Larry! Are you and your mom all right? What happened to Sharon?"

"[Catatonic. I think.]"

Leona frowned. "'Larry?'"

"[Mother killed Kisvallen. Since he seems to have been the strike leader on the Mandala reclamation project, this will disorganize them a bit. I still think we need to move quickly, though. Eventually, they'll regroup and go after my younger brother and sister.]"

"Don and Laurie are in danger?" Leona shrieked.

"Let's get going, then," Jane said. "We can do what we can for Sharon in the car."

"Right," Cliff said. "Think your mother's still in danger?"

"[Why take chances?]"

"Good point. Mrs. Poole, if you could come with us... uh, we'll try to explain things on the way, all right?"

"Those bastards had better not _touch_ my kids," Leona said grimly. "Come on!" She ran down the stairs and out the door, still holding the baseball bat.

* * *

Leona gave directions to Johns Hopkins, where Donald was an intern. Driver 8 nodded. "That's all I need." They set off at high speed.

"Larry?" Cliff turned his head. "I think we owe your mom a few explanations."

"[It'll have to wait. Sharon's catatonic; I need to try to bring her out.]"

"What's wrong with her?" Leona asked, concerned.

"[I told you. She thinks she's dead.]" Rebis looked up at Cliff. "[Actually, the situation's worse than I thought. She's not inside her head; her spirit has gone somewhere. I don't even know if I _can_ bring her back.]"

"How does she deal with this normally?" Cliff said. "I mean, aside from going to the local loony bin?"

"Check her pocketbook for drugs," Driver 8 suggested.

Rebis pulled the pocketbook out from under the seat and did so. "[Ah.]"

"Found something?" Cliff asked.

"[Antipsychotics. Yes.]"

"You know the right dosage?"

Leona said indignantly, "Eleanor's a _doctor!_ Of course she knows the right dosage."

"Eleanor maybe was a doctor, but Rebis... Skip it. Do you remember the right dosage?"

"[More or less.]" There were needles and vials of liquid antipsychotic drugs in the purse; Rebis summoned up Eleanor's memory of a normal dosage for a catatonic patient and drew the correct amount into the needle. "[I should probably go looking for her anyway,]" s/he said as s/he injected the drug into Sharon's arm. "[If it helps her to revive faster...]"

"I guess so. She did it for you," Cliff said. "If you think you have to."

"[I think it would help.]"

"What is going _on_ here?" Leona asked desperately.

Rebis was holding Sharon's hand and murmuring something unintelligible. Cliff suspected that s/he was completely zoned out. "Okay. Let me try to explain the situation, Mrs. Poole--"

"Why did you call my daughter 'Larry?' _Twice!_ Why--"

"I'm _going_ to explain, if you'd calm down and let me talk. Okay?"

Leona breathed deeply. "All right. Explain."

"Like I said before, we're the Doom Patrol. I'm Cliff Steele--"

"Is that a superhero name or a real name?"

"It's my real name. Why?"

"Oh, well, I thought all you superheroes had to have made-up names. Anyway, the 'Steele' part, since you look like a robot and all-- maybe it's presumptuous of me to ask, but _are_ you a robot?"

"Cliff's a human being," Driver 8 said coolly. "His _body's_ a robot."

"Right. Anyway, we're not talking about me, we're talking about Rebis. See, in the old-- before-- okay, several months ago, I had this friend named Larry. Larry Trainor. He used to have the Negative Spirit-- that's that green thing you saw with Rebis-- but that was all. He was just an ordinary guy. This thing-- it's radioactive-- he had to wear special bandages to keep the radiation in, like Rebis wears now. So several months ago, we thought he was cured-- I mean that he didn't have the Negative Spirit anymore, and he could lead a normal life. He was in the hospital, and your daughter was his doctor."

"And somehow my daughter was possessed by this-- this Negative Spirit of his?"

"No, it's worse than that. The Negative Spirit showed up and merged Larry together with your daughter. So Rebis is both Larry _and_ Eleanor, except he doesn't much act like either of them."

"My-- Eleanor--" Leona shook her head and placed her hand to her eyes. "I don't understand this. Is Eleanor somehow trapped in your friend's body? Or--"

"They're the same person. One single body that's both male and female. Ask Rebis when he wakes up."

"What-- is she-- I mean he or-- whatever. Is Eleanor asleep?"

"Not exactly-- he's looking for Sharon's spirit. See, he was in a coma recently. Sharon's power is to go inside people's heads and-- are you following this?"

"In a coma? Why?"

"Because-- let me try to explain it from the beginning." Cliff shifted position, so he was facing the back seat with his body rather than just his head. "Three days ago, Rebis was given this powerful item, called the Mandala of Eternity, by a woman who died shortly after that. The woman who died was killed by the Mad Ones-- the people we fought back there. They want this Mandala and they somehow figured out that Rebis had it, only they only know Rebis as Eleanor. They killed Eleanor's old boyfriend--"

"Dan? You mean Dan? He's dead?"

"Yeah. He's dead. And Rebis figured out that they'd be coming after you and his brother and sister. Only, before we knew Dan was dead or about the Mad Ones or anything like that, Rebis tried to use his powers to study the Mandala. He's got a lot of weird senses. He got sucked in and went catatonic. So we called in Dr. Dilliard-- that's Sharon-- to help us get Rebis back out of there. And now Rebis probably wants to return the favor for her. I don't know _what_ he's doing, exactly, but he's trying to wake her up."

"If-- if Rebis is-- is two people, then why do I hear her speak with Eleanor's voice?"

"I hear Larry's. Jane, what do you hear?"

"It just sounds to me like an androgynous voice. It doesn't _have_ a sex."

"Rebis says it's just a trick of our imagination, that we hear him as whichever side we knew him as. Jane didn't know him before, so maybe she hears the voice right."

"I told Eleanor she shouldn't get involved treating superheroes," Leona mumbled. "This is so strange. Why didn't she tell me about this?"

"I don't know. Ask, why don't you. Maybe because he knew what a mess he'd make of it."

"What about these things that we're going to rescue Donald and Lauren from? What are they?"

"Hell if I know. They call themselves the Mad Ones, and they live up to the name. But we'll get your kids, Mrs. Poole. I promise."

"And-- and Eleanor-- does this for a living now? I mean-- she used to be a doctor. She's a superhero now?"

"Larry used to be a test pilot. I used to race cars. Jane used to be a graphics designer in Metropolis. We're all superheroes now."

"But-- we were all so _proud_ of her. The family's first doctor..."

"Well, now she's the family's first superhero. What's the problem?"

"Well, I suppose... superheroes save lives, too, but... it's just so _dangerous_. All this wouldn't have happened if she weren't a superhero."

Cliff shrugged. "Hey, it's a dirty job, but somebody's got to do it."

* * *

At the molecular level/the spiritual level/the level of the quantum dance, all of reality was linked. Science, magic, the borderworld of the psychic, all were different ways of looking at reality, different metaphors. Since becoming Rebis, s/he had seen that reality was bigger than any of them. Such a narrow window each looked at, like the blind men and the elephant, each claiming to have a monopoly on the truth. S/he remembered physics and technical studies for would-be astronauts, so dry. Biochemistry for doctors, so narrow. This was the ultimate, the fusion of all possible realities at the fundamental level of the matter/energy matrix, and perhaps Rebis was the only one who could see it.

The dance of molecules in the brain. Dopamine receptors firing wildly, being slowly shut down by antipsychotics. The physical level of chemistry mirrored the level of mind, of spirit. A mind with gaping doorways, leading onto some other spiritual plane. The realm of dreams, of nightmares, of astral travel. A slender ectoplasmic cord led out the doors, a spirit lost elsewhere, connected by only a silver wire. In the brain, the song of the cortex was muted with unconsciousness. Only the fire of visions blazed, slowly being damped by the drugs. The doors of the mind were closing, closing, and the silver thread was being reeled in slowly. It was all the same, the firing of the dopamine receptors keeping the spiritual gateways open. It all depended on the metaphor you used.

Cautiously Rebis probed deeper. The mind was defenseless. Any number of horrors could come to rest here. Rebis, knowing more than most about the reality of spiritual predators, was surprised Sharon wasn't crazier than she was, if this was how she left her mind during every breakdown. There was no sign that any demons or unquiet spirits had ever possessed this vulnerable mind, and yet there were no discernible defenses to keep them out. Was this in fact an unusual kind of breakdown for Sharon, or had she just been very very lucky? Or perhaps there was an intentional defense. Rebis came with the intention to help-- perhaps there was something that kept those with more predatory intentions out.

Rebis's physical body could be left in the care of the Negative Spirit-- s/he would have to leave it to go through the doorways, after Sharon's vanished spirit. Carefully s/he dissociated from the physical and stepped through a doorway in Sharon's mind. The ectoplasmic cord stretched out into infinity. Rebis followed it, flying along its length as it stretched in the space between worlds. Behind hir, s/he left a silver thread of hes own, anchoring hir to the physical.

S/he came to a place of pain. A nightmare place, where an ugly thought could manifest as a hideous living thing. A place populated by demons, a place of living death. Or perhaps of death itself. The nature of the realm provided a tangible resistance to Rebis's spirit, enough that s/he feared tearing hes lifeline if s/he approached too closely. "[Sharon? Sharon!]"

Sharon lay on a slab, the center of this tableau of torment. She was naked and completely immobile. Her eyes had been gouged out and lay on her cheeks, a meal for ants; blood poured from every orifice, but most especially ears and nose. She could see nothing, hear nothing, smell nothing, being dead, but she could feel everything. And of course, some part of her could actually see and hear perfectly well, to know the full extent of the torment. Only the aspect lying immobile on the slab had been deprived of some senses.

This place was in part a creation of Sharon's mind, of her power. But since her power could shape the fabric of the dreamscape, it was far too stable and too old to be a mere dream. This was a realm of nightmare, populated by demons whose only purpose in existence was to inflict pain on Sharon Dilliard.

And she believed that this was what death entailed. Even if she were freed now, someday she would inevitably come to this place for good...

"[_Sharon!_ Can you hear me? Can _any_ part of you hear me?]"

Maggots with tiny sharp teeth crawled in and out of the corpse. Slavering sexual demons did unspeakable things. The air radiated pain and fear and anguish and, underneath, a deep masochistic satisfaction. She was being punished, all was right with the universe.

What she was punishing herself for, Rebis didn't want to imagine. S/he pressed forward against the viscous air, calling. Some part of Sharon could hear. "[Sharon, can you hear me? I'm here to get you out. You have to come with me. Can you come back to life?]"

_dead dead dead in the pain tomb in hell with the demons oh_

"[Sharon?]"

_If you should see a hearse go by, then you will be the next to die, they wrap you up in a big white sheet, then shovel you under 'bout six feet deep..._

Rebis had almost reached her. The demons struck at hir, but were insubstantial. They were Sharon's demons, and had no power over Rebis. "[Sharon, come on. Come back. We need you.]"

_alas poor yorick i knew her down in the depths of the crypt and the creaking tomb with eyes sewn shut and stapled lips and blood replaced with cool formaldehyde_

"[Sharon.]" Rebis grasped the corpse and pulled it up. The eyeballs fell out of the sockets and rolled on the ground. "[I know you can still see-- you're seeing all of this. It's time to come back to life.]"

The dead body shuddered. Demons clawed at it, trying to drag it back. Now they _were_ substantial to Rebis, trying to pull hir down with them. Rebis floated back along the silver cord, moving quickly. For once, hes lack of emotional affect was a definite advantage; s/he knew that if the things could manage to cut hes lifeline, s/he would die here, but it didn't seem like a pressing problem, and there was nothing recognizable as fear. Fear fueled the creatures. Rebis was totally confident of hes ability to get back to hes own body, and almost as confident of hes ability to bring Sharon back as well. The demons bit and clawed and spat fire, but Rebis was aware of how unreal they were, and so the attacks brought no pain. As they flowed backward toward life, Sharon began to stir, the corpse returning to life and reuniting with the aspects that had been awake all this time.

"...w-who?..."

"[Rebis.]"

"...but you don't... you're so beautiful... not like in the dream..."

Whatever it was she was seeing, Rebis couldn't see it. "[I think you're probably hallucinating.]"

"...I can see your soul... it's glowing, so many different colors... it's so..."

Perhaps she could. Rebis didn't particularly care. They fell backward through the door into Sharon's mind, as her spirit healed all its wounds, and Rebis returned to the physical world, sensing Sharon but no longer inside her mind with her.

The gateways had closed. The brain came alive again, but it seemed dulled-- like the light of an office after being outside on a sunny day. "[She's coming around.]"

"uhhn..."

Cliff leaned over the seat. Sharon was still curled in Rebis's lap. Her eyes fluttered open and she moaned. "How do you feel?" Cliff asked.

"Like an undead corpse," she muttered. "Did... somebody... give me drugs?"

"[I did.]"

"Dosage?"

Rebis told her. Sharon closed her eyes. "[Was the dosage wrong?]"

"I guess... I can't complain... anyone would've... and anyway, 'ts better'n hell..."

"What's wrong?" Cliff asked. "Was it too much?"

"For... ordinary... no. Even... for me... it did what it's supposed to. But... oh, I feel like something the cat dragged in... it suppresses too much. My other senses. I can't think. Like... cotton wool around my brain."

"[Sorry.]"

"Not your fault. But... I better sleep... okay? I'm not going to be... much good to anyone."

"We're coming out of the Underground," Driver 8 reported.

"Yeah. Go to sleep." Cliff turned toward Leona. "You'll have to give her directions."

* * *

It was Dr. Donald Poole's fifteenth cup of coffee and 42nd hour of being awake. He had had three and a half hours of sleep in the past 41 hours, but since they were all obtained in bits of ten to twenty minutes, they didn't really count as _sleep_. He was starting to fantasize about sleep. Never mind sex, never mind backrubs, never mind hot fudge sundaes; he wanted a cool and blissfully lonely bed. It didn't even have to have sheets. Hell, it didn't even need to be a bed, so long as it stayed still when he lay down on it.

"I'm not going to lie to you," his older sister Eleanor had said. "Internship is hell. Sheer, unadulterated hell. You have to really, really want to do this."

_Sure, sis. I can handle it, sis. I must be utterly nuts to want this, sis._

He wished he knew where Eleanor was. She had mysteriously disappeared in some kind of accident, and hadn't made contact with the family for months. Donald wondered sometimes if she was dead. He felt sad about it. Not now, though; he was too tired to be sad, or anything else. _Six more hours and I can sleep. Six more hours. Only six. How many cups of coffee is that?_

Someone was nudging him. Blearily he glanced over at his friend Mike. "Don, they're paging you. Can't you hear it?"

"Oh." Donald listened for the page, but he'd missed it. "Did it say where to go?"

"They said the front desk."

_Not more hours. You're not taking my sleep away from me. I don't care if I never get my license, you're not giving me more hours._ He trudged to the front desk, and noted his mother standing there, accompanied by a burn victim in a colored trenchcoat and a man in a robot suit. Under normal circumstances this might have surprised him; right now, though, nothing surprised him. "Mom?"

"I just finished explaining to your supervisor. There's a family emergency. You've got to come."

"Emergency. All right." He wondered if the emergency had to do with Eleanor, but was too tired to articulate the question. Instead, he followed his mother and the other two out into a car. There was a white woman with black hair at the wheel of the car, waiting, and a woman in a beige dress slumped asleep in the back seat. She looked very comfortable. "Mind if I take a nap?"

"Poor thing. How long have you been up this time?"

"A long time. 41 hours. Almost 42. I had three hours of sleep but it doesn't count because it wasn't straight through."

"[Yes. I remember. Internship year,]" the burn victim said in Eleanor's voice. Don was slightly surprised.

"Leigh? You get burned or something?"

"[Something.]"

"She's a superhero now, Don."

"Oh. Does she wear one of those neat costumes?"

"[Just go to sleep.]"

Don crawled into the back seat, sandwiched between Eleanor, the sleeping woman, and his mother, and promptly did so.

Jane giggled wildly as she started the car. "A neat costume? Rebis, Rebis, I've got an idea! Imagine you wearing one of those silly costumes... a spandex bikini... with a big letter R on the front..." She could barely control herself. Cliff had a sudden mental image of the costume, and started laughing as well.

"[I'm not sure I see what's so funny,]" Rebis said, sounding genuinely bemused.

"Nothing," Cliff said. "I was just thinking of you and me and Jane in typical superhero costumes, like they wear nowadays... By the way, who's Leigh?"

"[Eleanor's middle name. Don and Laurie used it as a nickname for me when they were too young to pronounce Eleanor.]"

"Did you spell it 'L-e-e'?" Jane asked.

"[No, 'L-e-i-g-h'. Why?]"

"Oh, I was just thinking it would have been nice and androgynous if it had been the other way around. I know both men and women who are L-e-e Lee's. Did you know, if you transliterated Rebis into Japanese, Lee would be the first syllable of your name?"

"What does Japanese have to do with anything?" Cliff asked.

"Nothing. I just thought it was interesting."

* * *

They headed into the Underground.

"So, uh..." Leona seemed at a bit of a loss. "Do you kids enjoy being superheroes?"

Cliff shrugged. "It's a living."

"I never thought about it one way or another," Driver 8 said. "Although, Crazy Jane says to tell you, since she can't come up herself while we're using my power, that she absolutely loves it and she never had so much fun in her life."

"Wait," Leona said, startled. "Aren't _you_ Jane?"

"No, I'm Driver 8."

"But-- Mr. Steele called you Jane--"

"Jane has multiple personalities," Cliff explained. "The one we're talking to now is Driver 8. Crazy Jane's the name of one of the personalities, and since she's usually the one up, I generally call them all that when I don't know who's up."

"We do need some kind of public name," Driver 8 agreed. "Jane's got a catchy one. Most of us don't have a problem being called by her name."

Leona pressed her head against the back of the seat in front of her. "This is so strange," she moaned. "Your old friends were so much more _normal_, Eleanor."

"[I'm not really Eleanor.]"

"She doesn't need to hear that, Rebis," Cliff pointed out.

"[_I_ don't need to hear how abnormal I am for Eleanor. I'm _not_ Eleanor, and I'm getting a little tired of being treated as if I am.]"

Cliff was startled. Rebis must be seriously upset, to show this much emotion. "Yeah, well, mothers. You know."

"Eleanor, you're my _daughter_. Do you want me to believe my daughter's dead, and all that's left is some cold freak?!" Leona shouted.

"[If it makes you feel better.]"

"It _doesn't_ make me feel better! How can you be so callous if there's anything in you of Eleanor at all?"

"[Am I being callous? I thought I was being realistic.]"

"Look, maybe the two of you ought to have this discussion privately, some other time," Cliff suggested. "Right now, we've got to worry about rescuing Lauren. Where exactly is she again?"

"The University of Pennsylvania," Leona said, slightly mollified by the opportunity to talk about her children. "That's an Ivy League school, you know. Lauren gets straight A grades."

"Hey, that's good. What's she majoring in?"

"Well, she's only a freshman, so she hasn't got a major. She's got a practical, hard head, my Lauren does. She'll probably go into business and make a million dollars before she's thirty."

Cliff kept Leona talking most of the ride, until they were out of the Underground and had pulled up on a side street next to Lauren's dormitory. This time, Jane decided to accompany them. "I have a feeling you'll need me," she said. "By the way, Cliff--" this was out of Leona's earshot-- "that was great, how you handled her. I could barely stand to listen to the old biddy going on and on, let alone get her to keep talking so she'd leave Rebis alone. You've got a talent."

"Yeah, well, I'm glad _someone_ appreciates my efforts." With a pointed glance at Rebis, who was heading up the walkway to the dorm. "Let's go."

Inside, the guard challenged them for student ID. Leona explained that they were there to see her daughter, and the guard offered to call upstairs and get Lauren to come down and sign them in.

"[There isn't time,]" Rebis said. "[We need to get in _now_.]"

"I'm sorry, I just can't let you in without a student's signature."

"We _are_ students," Jane said. "I'm dressed in black designer art-fart clothes and half my head is shaved. He's a football player wearing a black leather jacket. This lady is a graduate student in conservative clothes, and this is a tall young man with a cueball head, sunglasses, trenchcoat and a broken arm in a cast. All of us have student ID. So let us in already."

"Sure thing," the guard said. "Sorry about that. Go on up."

"Which staircase?" Cliff asked. There were four, one at each corner of an enclosed courtyard. A hole in the courtyard showed students in a cafeteria, eating dinner. "You've been here before, haven't you, Mrs. Poole?"

"Uh... yes. That one, over there. Why did he let us in? What did you _do_ to him?"

"Ever see _Star Wars_?" Jane asked.

"No, I can't say I have. My late husband took Donald and Eleanor to view it when they were small, but I've never liked sci-fi."

"Pity. You should have seen _Star Wars_. It was a fun movie." She grabbed the railing. "Let's hurry, okay? I've got a _bad_ feeling."

They hurried up the stairs, drawing strange looks from students. Lauren's dorm room was on the third floor, near the staircase. Leona banged on the door. "Laurie? Laurie, honey, you in there?"

From inside, an insane giggle. "All right," Cliff said. "Stand back." He took a step backwards, and bodyslammed into the door, grabbing it as he crashed through so it wouldn't fall on anyone. "Jesus!"

Once the dorm room had probably been a typical messy dorm room, with pictures of rap artists decorating one wall and impressionist prints on the other. Now various day-glo substances had been sprayed all over the walls, the furniture, and the single occupant of the room, a blonde girl who looked as pale as death. She giggled hysterically.

"Raquel!" Leona shouted, grabbing the girl's shoulders. "Raquel, are you all right? Where's my daughter?"

"Momma had a baby and her head popped off!" Raquel caroled.

"[They were here already. We're too late.]"

"Too _late?_ Where's Lauren?!"

"Momma had a baby and her head popped off! Momma had a baby and her head popped off!" Raquel sang the inane children's jingle louder and louder, rocking back and forth. "Momma had a baby and her head popped off!"

"Watch out!" Jane shouted. "_Duck!_"

As everyone ducked, Raquel's head exploded in a pyrotechnic display of brilliant colors. Sparks and blood flew everyone. Leona gasped, as if she were choking.

"Oh-- oh, no-- not Lauren--"

"[Not yet. No. This is a warning.]" Rebis touched the remains of the dead girl. "[The Mad Ones want the Mandala. They've taken Lauren hostage for it.]"

"Then _give_ it to them!" Leona shouted. "It's not worth your sister's life!"

"[The Mandala itself is not worth _anyone's_ life. Keeping it out of the Mad Ones' hands, however, is worth several thousand lives. They would consume far more than that with the Mandala under their control.]"

"Shit." Cliff got out of the apartment. "Shit, shit, shit. Come on. We'd better go back to base and consult the Chief."

"What do you mean? My daughter is in the hands of those-- those-- _maniacs_-- you've got to do something!"

"Like _what?_" Cliff snarled. "We know the problem, okay? We'll do everything we can to get your daughter back. Right now, though, I just don't know where to start."

"I do," Jane said. "When we get back home. We can open a gateway to the Deep Underground and go in after her."

"I don't know... remember what happened last time?"

"We have to _try_, Cliff. Anyway, this time we'll be prepared."

"Yeah. Well, before we do anything like that, we'd better get all the civilians somewhere safe. Leave the Chief and the others watching them. Rebis? Mrs. Poole? You coming?"

* * *

The ride back was somewhat subdued. Leona was trying hard to keep from breaking down, and failing. Cliff couldn't blame her; bad enough to find out that one daughter had turned into something like Rebis, worse yet to be attacked by the Mad Ones in her living room, but this, the capture of her other daughter by the Mad Ones, had to be the straw that broke the camel's back. Both Sharon and Donald were still asleep, Driver 8 was getting exhausted from being up so long and using her powers constantly, and Rebis was thinking, or so s/he claimed.

Cliff tried to work out a plan of attack, and realized he didn't have enough information. Assuming they could get into the Deep Underground, what then? They had to rescue Lauren _and_ get the Mad Ones to stop pursuing the Mandala, all without yielding the Mandala to them or getting any civilians killed. Since he had no idea what the structure of the Deep Underground was like, it was impossible to make any kind of coherent plan. He sincerely hoped Jane and Rebis could figure out more than he could, because otherwise the situation looked rather hopeless.

* * *

Father Uvula carried the smashed body of the glass boy into the room above the sacristy. The Bishop nodded at him. "What have you brought us, my son?"

Uvula laid the body carefully onto the table of petrified wood. "This was one of the Mad Ones," he said. "I discovered him and a number of other dead Mad Ones in my search for the Mandala of Eternity. This one was a strike leader, in charge of capturing the Mandala."

"I see." The Bishop nodded, examining the dead boy. "Good, good." He spoke into an ear that had been glued to the wall. "All priests of the Uninnocent are to meet in the Hall of Our Lord of Needles for the Rite of Awakening Sleepers." He turned back to Uvula. "We'll have some answers out of him yet."

At the third bell of eleven o'clock, they were all there, pale men circled around the altar in the vast Hall of Our Lord of Needles. Kisvallen's body had been laid out on the altar, naked, the shards of his head painstakingly glued together. Slowly the priests of the Uninnocent began to chant.

"_Domine noster qui cuspide et sanguine incolit, Domine noster qui spiculo concavum incolit, hunc quem dormit excita et is dicere face. Ab voluntate tua faciat. Hunc quem dormit excita. Ab voluntate tua facit."_ "Our Lord who resides in the point and the blood, Our Lord who resides in the hollow tip, awaken this sleeper and permit him to speak. By Your will let it be done. Awaken the sleeper. By Your will let it be done..."

As the chant crescendoed, the Bishop pierced one of the tiny cracks in Kisvallen's glass with a needle, and injected holy adrenaline, a substance taken from the bodies of murdered priests of other sects and blessed by the Bishop of the Uninnocent. Kisvallen stirred, the fine cloudy panes that obscured his eyes rolling back, revealing blank, staring orbs. "Who calls me?" Kisvallen asked, in a thready whisper. "I was with my brothers and sisters..."

"In the name of Our Lord, we charge you to answer our questions. Only after you satisfy all that we ask in complete truthfulness, sparing no relevant fact, shall we release you unto your rest. Now, answer! Where is the Mandala of Eternity?"

"I didn't find out," Kisvallen whispered. "I was close, so close... We tracked it to a woman named Eleanor Poole, and I had a photograph, but we couldn't find her, we couldn't find her. So we found the webbed connections and followed them. A lover died before he would talk. We attacked the mother and were ourselves attacked by a group called the Doom Patrol."

"Who are the Doom Patrol?" one of the priests, Father Zygoma, asked uncertainly.

"A group of superheroes," the Bishop proclaimed. "Idolaters all, worshippers of the Fallen Angel, the alien demon sent to test our faith. Go on!"

"One of their number was revealed as Eleanor Poole. But not Eleanor Poole, after all. A tri-souled hermaphrodite named Rebis was Eleanor Poole in part, but not in whole, and it was that one who has the Mandala."

"A _hermaphrodite_? Named _Rebis?_" the Bishop asked, clenching his fists and red with excitement.

"Yes. That was the sex, that was the name. Three entities in one. I had one of them in my grasp... I would have torn the Mandala from the hermaphrodite's head... but then something hit me. I know no more. Release me..."

"Give us a photograph," the Bishop demanded.

"I am damaged... my head smashed... I don't know if I..."

"_Do it_."

A blurry photograph began to congeal in Kisvallen's limp hand, of a person tightly wrapped in bandages. The Bishop removed the photo and inspected it.

"You are released," the Bishop pronounced, and Kisvallen died again.

"A hermaphrodite with a name like Rebis? You think it means the alchemical rebus?" a priest asked.

"Most certainly. It's hard to imagine someone more appropriate for the Salesman to choose. And the Kryptonian's worshippers are all trained and powerful fighters-- it might be more safe in this creature's hands than in the Traveling Salesman's own. It's obvious what we must do." The Bishop turned to Father Uvula. "Take a group of holy warriors from the brethren and find these Doom Patrol. Use any means necessary to take the Mandala from them. And when you have the Mandala, purify the unfortunates who have touched it."

"We purify for You, our Lord of the Darkness."

"Let it be so. Amen."

* * *

Back at headquarters, everyone disembarked in a hurry. Cliff carried Donald, who was still asleep, in to one of the bedrooms; Jane helped Sharon, who had woken up, make it to another. Rebis started to go get the Mandala from Caulder, but Leona got in hes way.

"You're going to get her back," Leona told Rebis, the way she might once have told Eleanor to clean her room or get better grades.

"[I believe Cliff already told you we would try.]"

"Don't give me 'try', girl! Or whatever you are now!" Leona grabbed Rebis's coat and tried to pull hir down. "You will _do_ it! Do you hear me? Lauren is your _family_. You are _not_ going to let those monsters kill her. Family is more important than this superhero thing. Do you understand me?"

Rebis pulled away. "[You seem to be under a misconception,]" s/he said. "[Perhaps it's my fault for calling you Mother. It makes it difficult for you to understand.]"

"Understand _what?_"

"[There are two kinds of relationships. Of the physical, and of the emotional. The physical is completely irrelevant now and the emotional is becoming so. We will rescue Lauren because she needs to be rescued, not because of any relationship she bore Eleanor Poole. That relationship no longer matters.]"

"Eleanor. What are you saying?"

"[I'm saying I'm not Eleanor. I'm grateful to you for saving my life, but that doesn't mean I accept the claim you're trying to place on me. I am not your daughter. Do you understand?]"

"You're still my _child!_ Whatever you become-- I'm your _mother!_ I-- where are you going?"

"[I have things to do.]"

"I'm not done talking to you!"

"[I've said all that needs to be said. I don't see any use in repeating myself, or listening to you repeat yourself. Stay here. Or don't. It's no concern of mine what you do, as long as you stop bothering me.]"

"_Eleanor!_"

Rebis went through one of the Restricted Access doors that only members of the Doom Patrol could access, leaving Leona locked on the other side.

The other two had already gathered in Caulder's office. "Ah, there you are, Rebis," Caulder said. "Cliff and Jane have been trying to construct a plan of attack. We're hoping you can provide some input."

"[Yes. I've come for my Mandala, Professor Caulder.]"

"I don't think that's wise. The thing does seem to be addictive, and you--"

Rebis interrupted, uncharacteristically. "[No, the danger is to you, not me.]"

"To me?" Caulder sounded frankly skeptical.

"[You've been studying it.]"

"Well, yes, I have. But I've been using instruments, not psychic abilities. I wouldn't think it would be dangerous under those conditions."

"[It is. The act of studying it activates it. Psychometry is only one method of opening doorways to knowledge. Laboratory study is slower but just as sure.]"

"Ah. In that case--" Caulder rolled his chair over to where the Mandala sat beneath a battery of instruments. "Is it safe to touch it?"

"[I'd think so.]"

"Maybe I better get it, just to be sure," Cliff said, picking it up. "_I_ didn't try to study it, so that ought to be safe." He carried it over to Rebis. "Can _you_ touch it, or is that too dangerous?"

Rebis took the Mandala."[Jane. Can we talk privately?]"

Jane glanced over at Cliff and Caulder. "Privately? What for?"

"[I'll explain.]"

"I do think that if you're planning something, you should let the rest of us know," Caulder said.

"[Yes. I'm planning something. Jane?]"

"Right." The two of them stepped outside the room and shut the door. "Okay, what is it?"

"[I want to give the Mandala to you.]"

"To _me?_" Jane sounded disbelieving. "Rebis, don't do me any favors. That thing has brought you nothing but grief--"

"[Not as a favor to you. The Mad Ones need two things from the owner of the Mandala. They need its location, and they need permission to take it. They believe I am the owner, and will try to pressure me into giving them both. I... you know that my offensive capabilities are sharply limited if I can't release the Negative Spirit.]"

"Yes, I know. What's your point?"

"[Earlier, when the Negative Spirit attacked Kisvallen, he captured it. He then told me that with the Negative Spirit trapped within him, he didn't need my permission. If he could take the location of the Mandala from me telepathically, he could wait for me to die, and then use the Negative Spirit as a sort of proxy for the permission requirement. Kisvallen may not be the only Mad One who can do that. And if I have to worry constantly that releasing the Negative Spirit will end up in the Mandala's capture, I'll be effectively crippled.]"

"So you hope to-- what?"

"[If I give it to you, I can no longer give permission for it. Also, the Negative Spirit could only be my proxy, not yours-- capturing it would not help them retrieve the Mandala. Then if you allow me to hide it for you, so that you don't know where it is, neither of us will be able to give them what they want. It will be some time before they realize what they've done. By that time, it may be too late for them to fulfill both aspects.]"

"You mean that one of us could be dead by that time."

"[It's a possibility.]"

"What about your sister? They'll try to pressure you by threatening to kill her. Probably they _will_ kill her when they find out you can't give them permission."

"[I know. By that time either we'll have rescued her, or it's not likely to matter to me what happens to her anymore. We _have_ to keep the Mandala out of the Mad Ones' hands.]"

"I know." Jane took a deep breath. "Okay. I accept the Mandala, at least until after all this has blown over, and I give you permission to hide it somewhere I don't know about. You won't tell Cliff or the Chief either, right?"

"[That's right. I'd prefer they don't even know we've divided the roles. Cliff has few telepathic defenses.]"

"Yeah. I don't want them tearing his mind up to get some facts about us. At least we can protect ourselves mentally. What _are_ you going to tell him?"

"[I'm not.]"

"You're not going to tell him anything about what all this is about? That'll hurt his feelings, you know. He already feels like the two of us leave him out half the time as it is."

"[I have more important things to worry about than Cliff's feelings.]"

"Fine. _I'll_ tell him something, and it won't be the truth. Okay? You go hide my Mandala."

"[Thank you, Jane. I do appreciate this.]"

"Get going." She turned and went back into the room.

"What was that all about?" Cliff asked.

"Rebis had this plan for how to hide the Mandala in a way that the Mad Ones couldn't zero in on it mystically. S/he wanted my advice on how to do it."

"So why privately? It's not like the two of you don't talk about things like that in front of me all the time/"

"Because the Mad Ones can probably read your mind, Cliff. We don't want them figuring out that way how we hid it." She shrugged. "I think after s/he does this, even _Rebis_ won't know precisely where the Mandala is. I sure won't. But we'd rather as few people knew about the technique as possible, okay? I'm sorry."

"That's all right. It's not your fault. We have a plan yet?"

"Well, after Rebis takes care of the Mandala, I think we'd just better go in there and reconnoiter. I don't know _what_ we'll find in the Deep Underground."

"Yeah. I just don't like going in blind, is all. Where's Sharon? You put her to bed?"

"Uh-huh. Her power's been knocked out by those drugs Rebis gave her; she's not going to be any use to us for a while."

"I'm not sure she's going to be any use to us at all anymore. You saw what happened. She panicked when the Mad Ones attacked."

"She's not well, Cliff. Anyway, could have been worse. Could have been Kipling."

"Don't remind me."

Rebis came in. "[It's done. Shall we go?]"

"Do _you_ have any idea what we're doing?" Cliff asked.

"[Rescuing Lauren, presumably. Do you mean, 'do I have a plan for doing so?']"

"I was hoping."

"[Sorry. We still need more information.]"

"That's what Jane said."

Caulder cleared his throat. "If the Mad Ones attack here, for whatever reason, Josh, Dorothy and I should be able to hold them off. If they have telepaths, however, they may find out from us where you went. I hope that's an acceptable risk."

"Oh, they'll know where we went," Jane said grimly. "They'll see us coming a mile away."

"Great," Cliff said. "Just great." He turned to Caulder. "I guess you'd rather we left from a different room?"

"I would prefer it so, yes."

"All right. Let's leave from one of the sealed rooms; that way if they come back through, we can contain them."

"[Good idea.]"

"Good luck," Caulder called as they left, heading downstairs.

* * *

In one of the sealed practice chambers, where the JLA had once refined their skills, Cliff, Jane and Rebis locked all the doors but one. They stood in front of that one, hands linked, concentrating on madness.

Then Jane opened the door, and the three charged through, into the Deep Underground.


End file.
